So this came up without any notice. Apparently the draw for our ACL group is tonight at 7:30. You can watch it on YouTube here:
I’d love for a bit of variety in teams, just a different club or two would be nice.
Here are the dates for the competition:
FMD, 6 games in 16 or 17 days? Quarantine either side?
I suppose the NYL has just been cancelled… 
They’ve changed the competition format for this edition, expanding the comp to 40 teams.
10 groups, only first place from each group is guaranteed to advance. 3 best runners up from each side also progress. That means two groups in Sydney’s half of the draw will only have one team advancing.
Why do I feel like Sydney are locked in to finish 2nd but not do enough to progress?
Brisbane Roar have their qualifying match against Kaya-Iloilo (Philippines), it’s their first ever appearance in a Champions League. Would love to see them do a Ceres against Brisbane.
If Brisbane win that, they have to go against Beijing Guoan for a spot in the group stage.
Melbourne City have Shan United (Burma) in their first qualifier. Win that and they are against Cerezo Osaka.
I don’t hate that idea, I wouldn’t mind popping down to a few games and obviously seeing all our games would be pretty superb.
Had no idea the format had changed, cheers gents.
I’d love to have a crack at the other AFC tournament (AFC cup?) just so we can play some different teams for a change. I always like watching the Europa league for all these weird and wonderful teams we get to see. I’d imagine it would be the same story
Seeing the comp expanded has meant guaranteed group stage appearances for a team from Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Philippines and Thailand.
Chances for something more interesting than just a J.League, K League, CSL team as almost every other time.
Tampons out.
FFS, Group J would’ve been a laugh, Jeonbuk & Gamba is pretty brutal.
In a hub, I back our boys to get out of this group.
Fucking covid. Short away trip to Singapore and the opening of Super Nintendo World in Osaka would’ve been two excellent away trips!
Yeah we finally get a country that isnt Korea/Japan/China and we cant travel.
Spare a thought for our Covite ex-pats in Singapore who earned a game in their backyard too.
Nice to see a different team to play
Haven’t been back to Singapore for ages and have always wanted to do the away trip there, would have been a great excuse for a little holiday. Thanks COVID!
Colour me jaded, but in a hub style groupstage on neutral territory, whats the point of 6 games each?
Also, the seedings seemed strange, shouldnt the top 5 eastern rankings get 1 team each as a seed one? Korea china japan thailand australia, or is that too European in thinking? Sydney instead got relegated to pot 4 with the other qualifiers, even behind teams that never featured in acl before.
It’s been years since an Australian team did anything of note in this tournament, so it’s probably fair that we are where we are I think.
It is sort of a comeuppance but it seems sydney consistently have the group of death and come 3rd
