i would like to share with you an interesting statistic about the tournament.

you know that the teams between 9 and 24 in the standings at the beginning of the league played each other to determine who would qualify for the last 16. after these matches, the round winners played the teams that finished in the top 8 and qualified directly for the last 16.

and only one team has been victorious in these direct matches with the participating teams, bodo/glimt. all the other qualifying teams were eliminated either in the first qualifying round or in the last 16. bodo/glimt lost the first leg 3-1 to tottenham in the semi final. bodo/glimt also finished 9th in the first part of the league due to the difference in average, even though they had the same points as rangers.

this is where we can understand the importance of being on top of the standings at the very beginning of the league. this system is new and it clearly shows us that it is very important to do well in the first 8 games that determine the standings.