I just checked this seasons champions league group stage matches and got quite bemused to see two french teams in the same group… i think it is good to have separate teams from different leagues in one group during the group stage.
I feel playing in the champions league is about playing against the teams from different leagues. And i don’t think it is justifiable to play against the same team that you have been playing season-in and season-out everytime in your national league.

It should be a different story in the knockout stages though. you should be ready to play anyone at that time…

Since there are 4 groups i don’t know why we couldn’t have 4 teams in different groups. i don’t think teams require protection at this highest level… just my opinion though.

Edit:
Similarly, i saw that two spanish teams were in the same group last season despite having only 3 spanish teams at that stage… and similarly italians and spanish teams suffered the same fate the season before that.

it’s on the enchancement list :) Though meeting an other team from your league should in my opinion be possible…it’s not ideal, not at all, but it should still be random.

vaughn, there is no problem in meeting teams from the same league after the group stage. if there are four teams from the same league in knockout round (quarter-finals), then quarter finals should be organized in such a way that not all teams from the same league reach the semi finals and same in the semi-finals too so that more leagues can represent the CL/EL (europa league). (similar as in real uefa competition)

I understand the reason behind your request Parag, but it’s not as easy as it sounds to integrate this restriction into the current criteria (team quality). Nevertheless it is on the enhancement list as Vaughn pointed out (even though I guess that only refers to the qualifying stage), so we’ll give it a try ;)

3 german teams in 1 CL group …
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up

eheh This CL is very weird, first because I’m not there :P and then because there are many teams from the same country in the same group. Only spain has 3 teams separated, and as they are most likely to pass we will have 3 Spanish teams in the finals…