James Milton: Scroll down and spare a thought for the clubs bowing out of new-look Champions League

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One of the great FA Cup adages is that nobody remembers the losing semi-finalists.

So who, other than the most fiendish of pub quizmasters, will recall the 12 teams who failed to qualify for the knockout stages of this season's revamped Champions League?

The league stage itself will soon be a fading memory as fans look forward to heavyweight playoff ties and Liverpool, Arsenal and Aston Villa supporters bask in their clubs' safe passage to the last 16.

This term there are no second chances for sides eliminated from the Champions League. They won't be sheepishly reappearing in the Europa League – they're gone, they're out of here. Exit means exit.

And, from a practical point of view, it is easy to overlook the clubs finishing 25th and lower, simply because the 36-team Champions League table is far too big for the average smartphone screen.

Are young people really going to spend valuable seconds scrolling down to discover Bologna's goal difference or Sturm Graz's final points tally?

Of course not, they'll just mutter a dismissive 'TL;DR' before swiping left and checking out the svelte and alluring 12-team William Hill Scottish Premiership standings instead.

This collective amnesia is particularly tough on Dinamo Zagreb, who lost 9-2 to Bayern Munich on matchday one before rallying impressively. Dinamo beat Milan 2-1 on Wednesday but missed out on a playoff spot on goal difference, finishing level on points with mighty Manchester City.

There were fewer positives for other eliminated sides such as RB Leipzig and RB Salzburg, who finished 32nd and 34th. Apparently, Red Bull gives you six points from a possible 48.

Girona, third in La Liga last season, were fourth from bottom in the Champions League and their only points came in a 2-0 home win over Slovan Bratislava.

Slovan lost all eight of their matches but managed to keep the scoreline respectable in a 3-2 loss to Milan on matchday five and subsequent 3-1 defeats to Atletico Madrid, Stuttgart and Bayern.

Goal difference nudged the Slovakian champions above rock-bottom Young Boys, who suffered eight straight defeats by an aggregate score of 24-3. After that chastening run of results, Young Boys are a little older, a little sadder and, perhaps, a little wiser. 

Terrible sporting campaigns tend to provoke a grim fascination. It's the same guilty pleasure we have watching bad people, manipulated by other bad people, behaving badly on reality TV. Or hearing about the final, chaotic days of a doomed political regime or an imploding celebrity marriage.

We've all felt the tug of schadenfreude – that handy German word meaning: 'Ha! Those Red Bull-backed clubs both lost seven out of eight in the Champions League!'

Will Southampton, who have six points from 23 Premier League matches this season, 'beat' Derby's notorious 2007-08 tally of 11? Real sickos can back Saints at 8-1 with bet365 to bank under 10.5 points.

England's female cricketers, meanwhile, are heading towards an unprecedented 16-0 Ashes defeat in Australia although, fortunately, that doesn't mean they will have lost 16 matches in a row. 

The Women's Ashes is a multi-format contest, presumably introduced to appease an Australian cricketing public who had grown weary of only beating England 5-0.

Australia earned two points for each of their six wins in the T20 and ODI series and, at the close of play on Friday, they were trading at 1-100 to win the Test match, which is worth four points.  

England have served up all the usual trimmings of an away Ashes disaster – a rained-off warm-up match, dismal fielding, limp excuses and an increasingly frosty relationship with the media – but a 16-0 scoreline represents uncharted territory.

There is something appealingly pure, numerically speaking, about a series clean sweep or Young Boys' league-stage record of P8 W0 D0 L8 Pts 0.   

For the hapless participants, though, a pointless campaign can be anything but pointless.

It is a line in the sand, a turning point, a chance for a fresh start. They can channel the frustration, anger and humiliation into something powerful and positive. This could be the first step on a journey of great personal growth for Young Boys.

Alternatively, as the character Dwight Schrute tells a co-worker in the US version of 'The Office': "Not everything's a lesson, Ryan. Sometimes you just fail."

Read more expert opinion from our top sports team:

Mark Langdon: Best bets for every Champions League playoff tie 

Jamie Griffith: Liverpool rewarded with a kind route to the Champions League final but Manchester City must run the gauntlet 

Simon Giles: No fluke about Bournemouth's push for Europe under inspirational Iraola 

James Milton: How the sporting year could unfold – from Anfield to Augusta and from Delhi Capitals to Donald Trump 

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