
The History Of UEFA Champions League
The English champions Sunderland defeated the Scottish champions Hearts 5-3 in what became known as the 1895 World Championship, the first meeting between the winners of two European leagues.
The Challenge Cup, a contest between clubs in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was the first pan-European competition.
Three years later, in 1900, the champions from the three leagues that were then the only ones in continental Europe—Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland—participated in the Coupe Van der Straeten Ponthoz, earning the title “club championship of the continent” from the local press.
Hugo Meisl, an Austrian, came up with the idea for the Mitropa Cup, a competition between Central European clubs modeled after the Challenge Cup and competed in 1927.
Swiss team Servette organized and hosted the first-ever Cup for national champion clubs in Europe, known as the Coupe des Nations (French: Nations Cup), in 1930.
Ten champions from all around the continent attended the Geneva event. The winner of the competition was Hungary’s Öjpest.
In 1949, countries in Latin America united to organize the Latin Cup.
The very successful 1948 South American Championship of Champions was covered by Gabriel Hanot, editor of L’Équipe, who thereafter started recommending the establishment of a continental competition.
The South American Championship of Champions served as the model for the European Champions Cup, according to interviews with Jacques Ferran, who co-founded the competition with Gabriel Hano.
Hanot eventually succeeded in persuading UEFA to implement such a tournament after Stan Cullis proclaimed Wolverhampton Wanderers “Champions of the World” after a prosperous run of friendlies in the 1950s, including a 3–2 friendly victory against Budapest Honvéd.
First imagined as the European Champion Clubs’ Cup, it was created in Paris in 1955.
1955–1967: Beginnings
The 1955–56 season saw the inaugural European Cup.
AGF Aarhus (Denmark), AC Milan (Italy), PSV Eindhoven (Netherlands), Djurgården (Sweden), Gwardia Warszawa (Poland), Hibernian (Scotland), Partizan (Yugoslavia), Rapid Wien (Austria), Real Madrid (Spain), Rot-Weiss Essen (West Germany), Saarbrücken (Saar).
Sporting CP and Partizan drew 3–3 in the inaugural European Cup encounter on September 4, 1955.
João Baptista Martins of Sporting CP scored the first goal in the history of the European Cup.
The first-ever final between Real Madrid and Stade de Reims was played on June 13, 1956, at the Parc des Princes.
Thanks to goals from Alfredo Di Stéfano, Marquitos, and Héctor Rial, the Spanish team overcame a 3-0 deficit to win 4–3.
The following season, Real Madrid defeated Fiorentina at their home stadium, the Santiago Bernabéu, successfully defending the trophy.
Real Madrid defeated the Italians by scoring twice in the final six minutes following a scoreless first half.
Real Madrid equalized in 1958 after Milan twice led on the scoreboard but were unable to capitalize.
Francisco Gento scored the game-winning goal in overtime in the Heysel Stadium final, enabling Real Madrid to win the championship for the third straight year.
In the 1959 final, Real Madrid defeated Stade Reims 2-0 at the Neckarstadion in a repetition of the inaugural final.
West German team Eintracht Frankfurt made history by being the first squad to advance to the European Cup final without participating in the Latin Cup.
The highest goal total in a final was achieved in 1960 at Hampden Park when Real Madrid defeated Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 thanks to four goals from Ferenc Puskás and a hat-trick from Alfredo Di Stéfano.
Real Madrid has now won five titles in a row, a record that remains unbroken.
When fierce rivals Barcelona defeated Real Madrid in the first round of the 1960–61 season, Real Madrid’s dynasty came to an end.
Portuguese team Benfica defeated Barcelona 3-2 at Wankdorf Stadium in the championship game.
Benfica won the title for a second straight season at the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam thanks to reinforcements from Eusébio, defeating Real Madrid 5-3.
After Benfica advanced to the final of the 1962–63 European Cup, they hoped to emulate Real Madrid’s prosperous run in the 1950s.
However, Milan emerged victorious at Wembley Stadium thanks to a brace from Brazilian–Italian José Altafini, marking the first time the trophy had ever left the Iberian Peninsula.
1968–1982
After defeating two-time winners Benfica 4-1 in the final, Manchester United became the first English team to win the European Cup in 1967–68.
Ten years had passed since the Munich air disaster, which had left United’s manager, Matt Busby, fighting for his life and eight United players dead.
Ajax made history by being the first Dutch team to make it to the European Cup final in the 1968–69 season. However, Milan won their second European Cup, defeating Ajax 4–1, with Pierino Prati scoring a hat-trick.
The competition’s first Dutch champions were announced for the 1969–70 season. Feyenoord defeated Celtic in the championship match after eliminating Milan in the second round.
Ajax defeated Panathinaikos of Greece in the championship game of the 1970–71 season to win the title.
the season saw several modifications, including the addition of penalty shootouts and the modification of the away goals rule to apply to all rounds except the championship.
It was also the first season that Real Madrid did not qualify, having finished sixth in La Liga the year before, and the first time a Greek team made it to the final.
After that, Ajax won the championship three times in a row (1971–1973), a feat that Bayern Munich tried to match.
The following seasons saw Nottingham Forest, led by Brian Clough, triumph in 1978–79 and 1979–80.
Liverpool won their third championship the following year, and in 1982, Aston Villa maintained the English domination.
1982–1992: English dominance is broken
Hamburger SV ended the English hegemony in 1982–83. Before the league was renamed the UEFA Champions League, Milan (2), Red Star Belgrade, and Barcelona were the champions.
Liverpool won it back in 1983–84 before falling to Juventus (1984–85); Steaua București then triumphed in 1985–86, Porto in 1986–87, and PSV Eindhoven in 1987–88.
In response to the Heysel Stadium disaster that occurred during the 1985 European Cup final, all English clubs were banned for five years, with Liverpool receiving a six-year suspension.
Anthem
Written by Tony Britten, the UEFA Champions League song, formally known as “Champions League,” is a rendition of George Frideric Handel’s 1727 anthem Zadok the Priest, which was one of his Coronation Anthems.
In 1992, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra played an anthem that Britten had been commissioned by UEFA to arrange.
According to UEFA’s official website, “the anthem is now almost as iconic as the trophy” and is “known to set the hearts of many of the world’s top footballers aflutter.”
English, German, and French are the three official languages of UEFA that are utilized in the chorus.
“Die Meister!” is the soundtrack for the pivotal scene. Die Besten! l’équipe des Grands! “The Winners!”
The chorus of the anthem is played at the start and finish of television broadcasts of the matches, and it is played before each UEFA Champions League match when the two teams are lining up.
Apart from the song, teams approach the field to the sound of entrance music, which is a portion of the anthem itself.
The chorus and two brief verses make up the three-minute-long anthem in its entirety.
English, German, and French are the three official languages of UEFA that are utilized in the chorus. Die Besten! l’équipe des Grands! “The Winners!”.
The chorus of the anthem is played at the start and finish of television broadcasts of the matches, and it is played before each UEFA Champions League match when the two teams are lining up. A
part from the song, teams approach the field to the sound of entrance music, which is a portion of the anthem itself.
The chorus and two brief verses make up the three-minute-long anthem in its entirety.
The piano rendition of the anthem was played by Hungarian pianist Ádám György during the 2023 final, which took place in Istanbul.
Under the name Champions League Theme, the anthem’s original version has been commercially released on iTunes and Spotify.
The anthem was remixed by composer Hans Zimmer and rapper Vince Staples in 2018 for the video game FIFA 19, which was also featured in the trailer for the game’s release.
Branding
The piano rendition of the anthem was played by Hungarian pianist Ádám György during the 2023 final, which took place in Istanbul.
Under the name Champions League Theme, the anthem’s original version has been commercially released on iTunes and Spotify.
The anthem was remixed by composer Hans Zimmer and rapper Vince Staples in 2018 for the video game FIFA 19, which was also featured in the trailer for the game’s release.
TEAM concluded that by 1999, “fans had a 94 percent recognition rate for the Starball logo.” This was based on research that TEAM did.
Qualification
The 32 teams in the double round-robin group stage of the UEFA Champions League are preceded, starting with the 2009–10 season, by two qualification streams for those teams not granted direct entry into the tournament.
Teams that qualified by winning their league and those that qualified by placing second or third in their national championship are split into two streams.
The UEFA coefficients of the member associations determine how many teams from each association qualify for the UEFA Champions League.
The performance of the teams representing each association in the Champions League, UEFA Cup/Europa League, and UEFA Europa Conference League during the preceding five seasons is used to create these coefficients.
An association’s teams participate in fewer qualification rounds and have greater representation in the Champions League the higher its coefficient.
The remaining 43 or 44 national champions compete in a six-round qualifying tournament, with the victors of that tournament receiving four of the six qualifying spots.
The champions from associations with higher coefficients advance to subsequent rounds of the competition.
The winners of a three-round qualification tournament involving ten and eleven teams from organizations ranked five through fifteen will receive the remaining two.
These clubs qualified by placing second or third in their respective national leagues.
After competing in all three qualifying rounds, Liverpool and Artmedia Bratislava became the first teams to advance to the Champions League group stage in 2005–06.
With 25 qualifying appearances each, Real Madrid and Barcelona are the teams with the most appearances in the group stage, followed by FC Porto and Bayern Munich with 24.
There was no distinction made in qualification between champions and non-champions between 1999 and 2008.
The top 16 teams from the major domestic leagues earned direct entry into the tournament’s group round.
The remaining teams were narrowed down earlier in three preliminary knockout qualifying rounds, with each team beginning in a different round.
In 2005, Liverpool made an exception to the standard European qualification method, having won the Champions League the year before, despite not finishing in a Champions League qualification spot in the Premier League.
England received five qualifying spots for the Champions League as UEFA granted Liverpool special permission to enter.
After that, UEFA decided that the reigning champions, regardless of their position in their home league, would automatically qualify for the competition the following year.
For leagues with four Champions League participants, on the other hand, this meant that the winner of the Champions League would qualify at the expense of the fourth-placed team in the local league if it finished outside the top four.
No organization was allowed to field more than four teams in the Champions League until 2015–16.
Tottenham was dropped to the UEFA Europa League for the 2012–13 season.
May 2013 saw the decision that the winners of the previous season’s UEFA Europa League would qualify for the UEFA Champions League, at least for the play-off round and, if the berth reserved for the Champions League title holders was not used, entering the group stage.
This would begin with the 2015–16 season and continue for the three-year cycle until the 2017–18 season.
A fourth-place team from one of the top three associations would only need to be moved to the Europa League if both the Champions League and Europa League winners came from that association and both finished outside the top four of their domestic competitions.
This is because the previous cap of a maximum of four teams per association was increased to five.
The president of UEFA, Michel Platini, suggested in 2007 that the cup winners of each of the three divisions with four participants be awarded a spot.
During a meeting of the UEFA Strategy Council, this idea was voted down.
However, at the same meeting, it was decided that the team finishing third in the top three leagues would automatically advance to the group stage rather than going through the third qualifying round, and the team finishing fourth would go through to the play-off round for teams that weren’t champions, which would ensure that they faced a team from one of the top 15 leagues in Europe.
This was a component of Platini’s strategy to boost the number of teams from lower-ranked countries in the group stage and the number of teams that qualified straight through.
In 2012, Arsène Wenger coined the term “4th Place Trophy” to describe earning a Champions League spot by placing in the top four of the English Premier League.
He came up with the expression during a pre-game press conference when someone asked him about Arsenal’s lack of a trophy following their FA Cup elimination.
He stated, “The first trophy is to finish in the top four”. Wenger was also cited as saying during Arsenal’s 2012 AGM: “For me, there are five trophies every season: Premier League, Champions League, and qualifying for the Champions League is the third.”
Group stage and knockout phase
32 teams are split into eight groups of four for the group stage of the tournament proper. Clubs’ results in UEFA competitions are used to determine which clubs are seeded into each group; no group may have more than one club from each country.
Every team participates in six group stage matches, going up against the other three teams both at home and away in a round-robin fashion.
The teams from each group that win and place second and third advance to the next round. The squad in third position advances to the UEFA Europa League.
Teams from the same association may not be matched against each other in the following round, the last 16, where the winning team from one group plays against the runners-up from another group (see random two-sided matching). Starting in the quarterfinals, there is no association protection and the draw is completely random.
The knock-out stage begins in February and runs from September to December for the group stage.
Every knockout tie—aside from the championship match—is played over two legs.
In the last two weeks of May or the first few days of June, as has happened in three even-numbered years since 2015, is when the final is usually held.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused a five-month tournament suspension for the 2019–20 season.
As a result, the remaining rounds of the competition saw a temporary format change.
The final was held on August 23 and the quarterfinals and semifinals were played as single-match knockout matches in neutral locations in Lisbon, Portugal during the summer.
Trophy and medals
The European Champion Clubs’ Cup, which has been given out since 1967, is given to the winning team each year.
Any team that won the Champions League three times in a row or five times overall starting in the 1968–69 season and up until the 2008–09 season was given the official trophy for life.
Every time a club accomplished this, a brand-new official trophy had to be created for the upcoming campaign.
The official trophy is owned by five clubs: Real Madrid, Ajax, Milan, Bayern Munich, and Liverpool.
Clubs receive a replica of the official trophy, which has been held by UEFA since 2008.
The current trophy is composed of silver, stands 74 cm (29 in) tall, and weighs 11 kilograms (24 lb). It cost 10,000 Swiss francs and was designed by Bern, Switzerland-based jeweler Jürg Stadelmann after the original was donated to Real Madrid in 1966 as a tribute to their six titles to date.
As of the 2012–13 campaign, the champions of the Champions League receive 40 gold medals, while the runners-up receive 40 silver medals.
Prize money
The following is the set prize money that will be awarded to participating clubs as of 2021–2022.
- Round of playoffs: €5,000,000
- Base group stage cost: €15,640,000
- Victory in the group match: €2,800,000
- Draw for group match: €900,000.
- 16th round: €9,600,000
- Round of eight: €10,600,000
- Round of 16: €12,500,000
- Second place: €15,500,000
- Champions: Twenty Million Euros
This indicates that, without taking into account shares of the qualifying rounds, play-off rounds, or market pool, a club can, at most, win €85,140,000 in prize money under this format.
The “market pool,” whose distribution is based on the size of each country’s television market, accounts for a sizable portion of the earnings shared by the UEFA Champions League.
The runners-up, Paris Saint-Germain, took home roughly €126.8 million for the 2019–20 season, of which €101.3 million was prize money.
In contrast, Bayern Munich, the tournament winners, took home €125.46 million in prize money.
The History Of UEFA Champions League