Shows how hard this is...

The 2 German sides have to be in different weeks for TV purposes !!!
The 2 Italian sides have to be in different weeks for TV purposes!!

Because other countries have TV deals like we had with ITV (who show Tuesdays only)

OK - thanks - interesting point.

So what about:

Juventus v Bayern
Kiev v Man City

PSG v Chelsea
PSV v Atletico Madrid

Arsenal v Barcelona
Benfica v Zenit St Petersburg

Roma v Real Madrid
Gent v Wolfsburg

That would appear to fix it - though it means Barcelona and Real Madrid are in the same week. OK, there are 3 Spanish teams in total - so 2 must be in the same week - but if Spanish TV has a "best game of the week" pick then they would obviously want Barcelona and Real Madrid in separate weeks.

Barcelona and Real Madrid have always been separated for TV so no it would not work

Remember there are really only 2 clubs in Spain !!!

Does the following set-up work?

Week 1
Juventus v Bayern Munich
PSV Eindhoven v Atletico Madrid

Arsenal v Barcelona
Benfica v Zenit St Petersburg

Week 2
Roma v Real Madrid
Dynamo Kiev v Man City

PSG v Chelsea
Gent v Wolfsburg

That gives:
- the two Italian teams in separate weeks
- the two German teams in separate weeks
- the three English teams split 2/1 with the two London teams in separate weeks (irrelevant?)
- the three Spanish teams split 2/1 with Real and Barca in separate weeks
- the three blockbuster ties on separate nights

Benfica Weds

Another factor is Sporting home in first leg Thursday
So Benfica playing Home Tuesday gives a gap for visiting fans in Lisbon

The playing in separate weeks is only relevant if a broadcaster has a "1st pick of the week" - ie it would not be relevant with the old ITV "1st pick Tuesday".

Do we actually know that such a package exists in Spain, Italy and Germany?

If it doesn't I can understand there may be a preference for separate weeks but does it really matter - clubs never play in separate weeks in the groups or QFs or SFs! So can it really be imperative that they do in the Last 16?

It does in Germany. Not sure about the others.

After the debacle in the mid-2000s in Germany, there are separate free-TV and pay-TV contracts. ZDF currently has the 1st pick Wednesday games, as well as a 'follow your team' clause. This means ZDF can show all the games of any remaining German team in the KO stage, regardless of whether its on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. Sky shows all matches, even the ones picked by ZDF.

In Spain, Antena 3 has 1st pick Tuesdays. beIN Sports show the rest of the games on pay-TV.

As for Italy, because Mediaset owns all the rights, they show 1 game free-to-air each week (via Canale 5 or Italia 1), with the rest shown on their pay-TV service.

So UEFA have kept the one Top free game a week in all countries
Except England
Where they took all the overpaid BT money

And laughed all the way to the bank

And France. Whilst Canal+ has the token '1st pick per matchday', they are a pay-TV channel. TF1, the largest broadcaster in France, used to have the free match, but now they only show the final, which is mandatory by law to be FTA.

Thanks a lot.

I see that BT are now doing the goals show in half an hour for the Europa League

Only 2 CL games a night makes it a bit pointless

Would have worked last night with a dull RM first half and it all going off in the Wolfsburg match.

Our coefficient is being done much good this week. We really could do with Spurs in particular winning next week if only to knock out an Italian team.

I think we need to win 4 games more than the Italians to keep the fourth spot, the Spurs draw actually was a win for the Italian coefficent as they had less entrys into Europe. Spurs really will be playing for fourth spot next week, for English Football!!

Meh, if it stops teams celebrating 4th place like a trophy then that'll do me.

If it goes to 3 that will be when a breakaway is threatened

If it goes to three teams Uefa will move the goalposts! No chance they'll risk upsetting the biggest tv market despite the rules.

The rumblings are there already with this big clubs threatening to breakaway unless they get their own Way

As of tonight we are still comfortably third – ie if all English and Italian teams lose every game from now on we are third.

Links below have been updated after tonight’s games:

Overall 5 year country ranking:

http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/...crank2016.html

Country workings for this season (which feed into above):

http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/...ccoef2016.html

Think they should hold on in third which keeps 4 entrants till 17/18 season . After that might be a problem

As of tonight we are 3.304 points ahead of Italy.

That means that if we don’t get any more points at all (ie every English club loses every match (*) from now on and gets knocked out this round) then Italy needs 20 more “individual club points” – as Italy’s points are divided by 6:

ie 20/6 = 3.333

Obviously the above is incredibly unlikely but what it roughly means is Italy needs 20 more points than we get – ie if we get 8 they roughly need 28 etc – it’s not quite like that as English points are divided by 8 whereas Italian points are only divided by 6 – so Italy would actually need a bit less than 28.

But even so that’s a big differential – on the face of it it’s 10 more match (*) wins – although in practice somewhat less due to the different divisor and the bonus points for reaching QF, SF and F (though only one bonus point for each round so not a huge factor).

(*) Note for those not familiar with how these points work – points are awarded separately for each match – ie each leg – not each tie as a whole. So, eg, Spurs and Liverpool both got one point tonight whatever they do next week. It's also only 2 points for a win.

But none of our clubs got a single win this week.

We should be fine for this year.
The 2017 ranking list is a different story....

All 4 were away from home.
Quite feasible all 4 will win the home returns.
Juve have Bayern next week and Spurs play Fiorentina so it may change dramatically