Hate the new Champions League format? Embrace the change and, er, open your mind | Max Rushden

A A few weeks ago I was sitting down to eat my neighbor’s cat (it’s okay, I’m an immigrant) when I saw something even more unsavory – a UEFA Champions League X video (Twitter) titled Dawn of a new era. The 30-second clip is an attempt to launch the format of the European Championship which kicks off next week.

They have recruited a bevy of ex-professional players: Luís Figo, Gianluigi Buffon, Robbie Keane (who has probably been supporting the new 36-team league system since he was a boy) look bemused. The highlight is Zlatan Ibrahimovic, ready to conduct the orchestra. “Who wrote this?” he asks. In comes UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin, in very shiny boots. “I wrote it,” he says, stretching out his arms, before folding them and smiling.

Why is he the center of attention in this ad? It’s true that some – not all – young fans support the player over the team, but is there a world of the internet I haven’t discovered where people just want to see football’s greatest administrators in shiny, tight suits? Who would look better in it? Gianni or Aleksander?

It’s healthy to be skeptical of those who manage football: their track record has not been good over the years. And now Ceferin wants to write the theme song and sing the theme song. Maybe he’ll decide to stick around for another cycle (or two).

As a human being I am open minded, but as a football fan I obviously hate change, so I am not disappointed to conclude that this poor advert shows that the entire format of the game is a disaster before a ball has even been kicked.

And there are reasons to worry. More games on an already bloated fixture list – player welfare, football’s growing carbon footprint. An attempt to fend off the big clubs in a bid to thwart a European Super League. No guarantee of a reduction in the number of players not playing. A league where you don’t play everyone. A league table with 36 teams – whose screen is big enough for that?

I find myself becoming something of an ultra in the Champions League group stages, despite having spent most of the last 20 years indifferent to it. Like all football, sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s boring.

I had closed my mind. Luckily Guardian Football Weekly contributor Mark Langdon from the Racing Post was there to open it up again.

Playing with eight teams instead of three is more interesting. Fans will get more exciting road trips. Teams will play two opponents from the same seeding pot, which means more “big” games but also more games that the smaller teams can win. Many of the top teams might just make the playoffs, which can make it quite interesting.

Before this forced intervention, my reaction was a perfect example of the generational conflict that all fans experience. We feel every new development is at odds with the game we loved as 10-year-olds – proudly telling those younger than us that those were the best years, simpler times. Yet at the same time we roll our eyes at those who came before us who claimed football was better before we fell in love with it.

This is obviously an oversimplification, but fans who want to embrace nostalgia but not completely ignore the new can find themselves in an uncomfortable no-man’s land between dinosaurs and hipsters. It’s a musical waiting to happen. Richard Keys and Andy Gray stomp around on stage laughing about xG while Opta Joe tries to drive them away with an iPad, some analytics and some very long Athletic articles.

From a broadcaster’s perspective, a healthy skepticism of new things is a good thing. You have to be honest with yourself but also remember that you have a vested interest in being employed for the next 30 years or more. Moving with the times is important. XG has taken me a long time – it’s not perfect but it can be useful.

In a particularly dull moment of anticipation for this weekend’s games, I was drawn to Jérémy Doku’s statistics on “ball carries” – a phrase that is not easy to pronounce. The BBC Sport website informs me that the Belgian winger has “carried the ball 747.8 metres in the Premier League this season, almost 300 metres more than any other player”. Brighton’s Jan Paul van Hecke is second on 457.3 metres.

Is this interesting? Perhaps it is. He runs more with the ball than anyone else. What does that mean? He is a great dribbler. It is easier to do that when playing for Manchester City. It is perhaps worth noting that he has been given permission by Pep Guardiola to do it more than his teammates. But there is a sense that football may not need someone to count how many metres Van Hecke dribbles per game.

It’s not a conclusion that will go viral, but the reality is that different people want different things from the game. Admire Van Hecke’s ball-carrying ability or not. Both are fine. And it’s perfectly acceptable to view your antiques through rose-colored glasses.

Interestingly, when it comes to the Champions League, there is a small group of us born in the late 70s/early 80s whose early years of learning the game coincided with the European ban for English clubs. The European Cup didn’t even exist. You didn’t see it, Saint and Greavesie didn’t talk about it. It didn’t exist. If anyone should be open-minded about next week, it should be us. It’s time to open my mind, even if I want the players to perform better when the game kicks off, however controversial it may be.