Entertainment desk
< October 16	<< Sep \| Oct \| Nov >>	October 18 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Entertainment Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 17

Europa League first knockout round

In the Europa League, after the group phase is concluded 32 teams enter the knockout stage: 12 group winners, 12 group runners-up, and 8 teams dropping from the Champions League.

What I can't work out is: normally in a group-followed-by-knockout format the group winners are each drawn against a runner-up in the first round, thus giving an incentive to finish first (and face a weaker opponent). Does this happen in the Europa League? And if so, how do the Champions League drop-outs fit in? --81.136.143.173 (talk) 10:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From UEFA:

Knockout phase

From the last 32 until the semi-finals, clubs play two games against each other on a home-and-away basis with the same rules as the qualifying and play-off rounds applied. In the last 32, group winners and the four third-placed sides from the UEFA Champions League with the best records are seeded, guaranteeing they will play the second leg at home. Teams from the same group or the same association cannot be drawn together. From the round of 16 onwards the draw is free. Dalliance (talk) 11:48, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

UEFA have a certain way with language. That UEFA guideline implies, but doesn't state that the 16 seeded teams (which includes the 12 group winners) also have the advantage of not playing other seeded teams in the round of 32, which is the thrust of the question. The fact that the 16 are all guaranteed to play their second legs at home means that they can't play one another, which is probably a bigger advantage than the three advantages cited by UEFA. UEFAese anyone? --Dweller (talk) 12:00, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So the four drop-outs with the most co-efficient points go with the group winners, and are paired against the runners-up and the drop-outs with fewer points. Thanks for your help. --81.136.143.173 (talk) 14:54, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite, it is the number of points obtained in the Champions League group stage that determines which CL dropouts are seeded, not UEFA coefficient. For example last season the seeded CL dropouts were Manchester City (10 points), Manchester United (9), Olympiacos (9) and Valencia (8, goal difference +5). The unseeded teams were Porto (8, GD 0) Ajax (8, GD 0), Trazbonspor (7) and Plzen (5). This meant the Europa League holders Porto were unseeded, even though they had the highest coefficient of any of the 32 teams, and were seeded in the highest pot in the Champions League group stage draw. The best site for trying to decipher UEFA draws is Bert Kassies' site. I am convinced that Mr. Kassies is the only person in existence that understands the whole thing, and I include UEFA themselves in that. Oldelpaso(talk) 17:28, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But Dweller, seeded teams by definition cannot play other seeded teams. I don't think UEFA must repeat the definition of "seeded" every time they use that term. --Theurgist (talk) 23:21, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In other FIFA and UEFA competitions, they use the word "seed" differently, where they allocate seeds of different pots to play one another, notably in the opening rounds of the World and European championships. Furthermore, given the barminess of UEFA competitions (they do, after all, have a "Champions' League" that includes national "champions"... plus up three other teams from any one country, making for a curious definition of "champions") there's no reason to suspect that they wouldn't create a system whereby "seeds" benefit in many ways but can still be drawn against one another. --Dweller (talk) 18:24, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Total Recall (2012 Film)

In the movie, before Colin Farrel's original identity got erased, did Colin Farrel honestly choose to be on the Resistance Side or did Colin pretend to be a Friend on the Resistance Side?(76.20.90.53 (talk) 16:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)).[reply]

It looks like nobody here knows. Sorry. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 07:04, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the original, Arnie intentionally had the "memory cap" put in place so he could infiltrate the rebels, with the idea of being able to destroy them once his original memories returned. I don't know if the remake follows the same formula. StuRat (talk) 07:18, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't remember Arnie's evil boss's name. What was the point of Arnie's evil boss sending Arnie to Earth for a Few Weeks? Why didn't Arnie immediately infiltrate the rebels? Since Arnie's evil boss sent Arnie to Earth along with Memory Loss, when was Arnie's evil boss going to bring Arnie back to Mars? Was Arnie's evil boss originally planning to send the Man with Suitcase & Double Agent Taxi Driver to Arnie's fake address on Earth?(73.48.225.235 (talk) 17:47, 13 June 2014 (UTC)).[reply]