To be precise, European football is back. I know that you are all excited about the NFL starting in just 3 weeks but, real football has already kicked off this week. This means we are heading towards a thrilling year that will end up around mid july next year with the World Cup final.

The curtain-raiser match for the new season was the Community Shield played at Wembley on Sunday 10th, between Liverpool (Premier League winner) and Crystal Palace (FA Cup winner). Both teams drew (2-2) following 120 minutes of play and the title was decided at the penalty shoot out. Crystal Palace beat Liverpool on penalties and became first time winer of this cup.

Three days later, PSG (Champions League winner) beat Tottenham (UEFA Cup winner) on penalties after a thrilling match. English team outperformed the French side for most of the match, though, in the last 10 minutes, the latter managed to equalize the final score (2-2). Then, on penalties, they beat Tottenham and won another European contest.

These have been just appetizers before action returns. This week, English Premier League, Spanish La Liga and French League 1 kick off their local contest. Then, next week, German Bundesliga and Italian Serie A will follow them. I must say that Portuguese Primeira Liga and Dutch Eredivisie commenced last week, though they are in a lower tier, in terms of attention from football fans.

I will try to write a serie this year to recap weekly what is going on in these contests, focusing on teams that will be playing at European level in the Champions League.

Again this year, I will be running the SN UEFA pool, which first week will be played in September 16-18th. UEFA Champions League format will be similar to last year's edition, which, in my humble opinion, was a huge success. 36 teams will play the group phase and just 8 will qualify straight forward for the last 16 round. Then, 16 teams will fight for the remaining 8 spots in a play-off.

I will divide the pool in two different contests. One that will cover the league phase and the second will run throughout the knock out phase that will start at the play-offs and will continue till the Final on May 30th 2026 in Budapest, Hungary.

I am aware that some of you have been suggesting some changes with regards to match outcomes. I have given some thoughts to it and I will post rules for this coming year next week. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments and we can discuss them further.

I hope you are interested in joining the contests and enjoying another great year of football at Stacker News.