UEFA Champions League

The UEFA Champions League (which used to be named and is often still called European Cup) is an annual club football competition organized by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for the most successful football clubs in Europe. It is one of the most prestigious club trophies in the sport along with America's Copa Libertadores. It has a global audience of more than a billion people.

The tournament was inaugurated in 1955 at the suggestion of the French sports journalist and L'Équipe editor Gabriel Hanot as a competition for winners of the European national football leagues under the name of the European Cup, but since the 1992–1993 season the competing teams have been the top performing domestic teams of Europe and the tournament has been renamed the UEFA Champions League, though some teams competing have never been champions in their respective countries. The UEFA Champions League is not to be confused with the UEFA Cup, the secondary championship for European club teams, or with the now defunct Cup Winners Cup.

The current holder of the UEFA Champions League trophy is Barcelona, who beat Arsenal 2-1 at the Stade de France in St-Denis, Paris on 17 May 2006.

History

Originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup, or simply abbreviated to European Cup, the competition began in 1955/56 using a two-leg knockout format where the teams would play two matches, one at home and one away, and the team with the highest overall score qualifying for the next round of the competition. Entry was restricted to the teams that won their national league championships, plus the current European Cup holder. This qualification system continued until 1997. From the 1997/98 season, the rules were changed to provide the cup with more exposure (and the extra sponsorship money that came with it), and to try to make it more "exciting". Teams other than national champions were allowed to compete, based on the relative strength of the football in that nation - from UEFA's point of view, a team finishing second in the Spanish La Liga would be more deserving of an automatic place in the Champions League than a team finishing first in, for example, Polish Orange Ekstraklasa. As a result, the system was restructured to force "weaker" national champions to qualify for the group stages, while other, "stronger" national runners-up would automatically get places.

The competition is organised and run annually in a similar manner to the Copa Libertadores in South America.

Qualification

The UEFA Champions league is open to the league champions of all UEFA member associations (except Liechtenstein, which has no league competition, as well as the two of the lowest-ranked league competitions in Europe, currently the Andorra and San Marino leagues), as well as to the clubs finishing from second to fourth position in the strongest leagues.

The number of places in the competition depends on the association's rank in the UEFA coefficients table:

An association's rank also determines the stage at which the clubs enter the competition. For example, the three highest-ranked associations have two places in the group stage (for champions and runners-up) and two in the third qualifying round (for third and fourth-placed teams), whereas the lowest-ranked associations have only one place in the first qualifying round for their champions. Nine highest-ranked associations have at least one automatic place in the group stage.

An additional place in the group stage is reserved for the title-holders, in case they don't qualify via their domestic league. However, an association is limited to sending at most four clubs for a season. This means that if the title-holders come from a league given four positions, but finish out of the top four, it will take the place of the fourth placed team. The fourth placed team will go to the UEFA Cup.

In addition to sporting criteria, any club must be licensed by its national association to participate in the Champions league. To obtain a licence, club must meet certain stadium, infrastructure and finance requirements.

There was controversy when Liverpool won the competition in 2004/2005, but finished outside the top four in the Premiership. The Football Association ruled that Everton F.C. (who finished fourth) would get the final spot. However, UEFA came to an agreement that both Merseyside rivals would be allowed to enter the competition with Liverpool starting from the first qualifying round and Everton starting from the third qualifying round. Liverpool became the first team to negotiate all three rounds of qualification and reach the Champions League group phase, a feat matched by Artmedia Bratislava of Slovakia in the same season. Liverpool went on to become the first team to reach the knockout phase from the first qualifying round.

Manchester United and FC Porto are the teams that have appeared most often in the group stages: twelve each. However, Manchester United and Porto have each only won the Champions League twice.

Champions League finals

The Champions League final is the most important match of the season in European club football. The stadium to host the final is selected by UEFA two years before the match.

The latest UEFA Champions League final was held at Stade de France on 17 May 2006 between Arsenal and Barcelona, which Barcelona won 2-1. In this particular match, Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann was sent off and two late goals by Samuel Eto'o and Juliano Belletti (both assisted by Henrik Larsson) secured victory for the Spanish side who had previously been trailing 1-0 to the Gunners for the majority of the match.

Real Madrid have won this competition nine times. The next most successful teams are A.C. Milan (six titles), Liverpool F.C. (five titles), FC Bayern Munich and Ajax Amsterdam (four titles).

The winning club gets possession of the trophy at the awards ceremony, but must return it to UEFA headquarters two months before the following year's final. UEFA gives the winners a scaled-down replica of the trophy to keep permanently, and winning clubs are free to make replicas of the trophy as long as they are clearly marked as replicas and are no larger than 80% of the size of the actual trophy. However, the current competition rules also specify that the actual trophy will be permanently awarded to a team that wins three consecutive years or five times in all.

Five clubs have been awarded the UEFA badge of honour and the right to keep the trophy permanently:

The first European Cup/UEFA Champions League final to be competed between two clubs from the same country was in 2000, when Spanish giants Real Madrid and Valencia reached the final. This was followed in 2003 when Italian giants AC Milan and Juventus reached the final, making it only two intra-national finals since its inception in 1955.

Memorable Finals

Since the champions league has been around it has been argued that the final matches of the tournaments have been disappointing, with basically the 2 strongest teams defending and keeping the other at bay. However, recently that has not been the case. In the 1999 final, Manchester United came from a goal down to win the competition in the last 30 seconds. In the first 5 minutes Mario Basler shot in a free kick which keeper Schmeichel couldn't get to. In injury time after trailing for most of the game, Manchester United got a chance and Teddy Sheringham equalized with 40 seconds of injury time to go, then after getting a corner, David Beckham whipped in the ball and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer poked the ball into the roof of the net, United won it in the dying seconds. In 2005 played in Istanbul, Turkey. Liverpool went on to win the competition after trailing 3-0 to AC Milan at half time. In the 1st minute Milan captain Paolo Maldini volleyed in a cross to gain the lead for the Italians, then in the 38th minute Hernán Crespo side footed in, he doubled his tally in the 44th minute after an exquisite pass from Kaka, deftly chipping the ball over Jerzy Dudek in the Liverpool goal. At half time most Liverpool fans were expecting defeat, trailing 3 goals to one of the world's best clubs. However in the second half Liverpool were a different team. In a 6 minute burst they were back level, firstly Captain Steven Gerrard headed a ball past Dida, then Smicer shot from outside the box, Dida attempted to parry but the ball went into the corner, and thirdly after another flowing move Gerrard was taken down in the box after a tackle by Gennaro Gattuso, and after Dida saved the initial penalty, Xabi Alonso hit in the rebound. Liverpool went on to win the game on penalties.