The Champions League is divided into three stages, the first is the qualifying stage, and the second is the qualifying stage.
European Championship Cup
It's the group stage, and the third stage is the final stage.
Qualifying stage competition system (* * * can be divided into two ways):
Starting from the 2009/ 10 season, there will be four rounds of qualifiers (the fourth round is a play-off) before the Champions League group stage, all of which are home and away two rounds of elimination, and another ten places will be decided to enter the group stage. There are two ways to participate in the Champions League qualifiers: the champion way and the ranking way.
The champion enters the group stage:
In the first round of qualifiers, the national champions of the Football Association ranked 48 to 53 in UEFA points. * * * Six teams were divided into two pairs for two rounds of home and away matches, and three winners entered the second round of qualifiers. The champions of 3 1 countries (except Liechtenstein) ranked by UEFA from 16 to 47 will directly enter the second round of qualifiers.
In the second qualifying round, 34 teams were eliminated in pairs of 17, and the winner of 17 entered the third qualifying round. Among the national league champions ranked by UEFA 13 to 15, ***3 teams directly entered the third round of qualifiers.
In the third qualifying round, 20 teams were eliminated in pairs of 10. 10 The winning team enters the play-offs (the fourth qualifying round).
In the fourth round of qualifiers (play-offs), 10 teams were divided into five pairs for home and away two-round knockout, and the top five entered the Champions League group stage.
How to enter the group stage:
The sixth runner-up of UEFA and the ninth runner-up of UEFA entered the third round of qualifiers directly with 15. This 10 team was divided into five pairs for elimination, and the winners of the five pairs entered the play-offs together with the runner-up of the Football Association ranked 1 to the third place in Europe and the runner-up of the Football Association ranked fourth to fifth. 10 teams were also eliminated in five pairs, and the winners of the five pairs entered the Champions League group stage.
The main purpose of separating the two qualifying methods is that teams that enter the qualifiers through championship and ranking methods will not meet in the qualifiers. Teams eliminated in the third qualifying round will enter the play-offs of the European League (the fourth qualifying round).
Group competition system
Entry criteria for the group stage: The number of teams directly entering the group stage is 22 (265,438+0 teams+defending champions), and the three football associations with the highest points in UEFA will each have three teams directly entering the group stage. The Football Association, ranked 4th to 6th, has two teams each. The Football Association ranked 7th to 12 has a team directly. Together with the 10 team in the play-off, 32 teams will participate in the Champions League group stage.
Group match: 32 teams are divided into eight groups, with four teams in each group scoring points. The two teams with the best results entered the final stage, and the third place in eight groups entered the knockout stage of the top 32 European League (UEFA Cup). The four teams with the best results will be listed as seed teams together with the first place in each group of the UEFA Cup.
Competition system in final stage
In the final stage of the Champions League, except for the median single-game elimination system, all others adopted the home and away two-round elimination system. In addition, there are only two awards in the Champions League, the champion and the runner-up, so there is no competition for the third place.