It is the most prestigious club event in UEFA, formerly known as the European Club Champions Cup, which was founded in 1955/56 season.
rules of a contest/competition
The Champions League is divided into three stages, the first is the qualifying stage, the second is the group stage, and the third is the final stage. Champions League qualifier stage system (* * * divided into two ways): Starting from the 2009/ 10 season, four rounds of qualifiers (the fourth round is a play-off) will be held before the Champions League group stage, all of which are home and away two rounds of elimination, and 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. How the champions enter the group stage: In the first round of qualifiers, the league champions of the Football Association countries ranked 48-53 in UEFA points, and ***6 teams were divided into two pairs for two rounds of home and away elimination, 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. The ranking method is to enter the group stage: the sixth runner-up of UEFA and the seventh runner-up of UEFA directly entered the third qualifying round 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 6 th to 3 rd runners-up of the Football Association and the 4 th to 5 th runners-up of the Football Association in Europe. 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). Competition criteria for the group stage system: The number of teams directly entering the group stage is 22 (265,438+0 teams+defending champions), and three teams from the three football associations with the highest points in UEFA will directly enter 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. In the final stage, the competition system is in the final stage of the Champions League. Except for the middle position, the single-game elimination system is adopted, and all others adopt 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.
[Edit this paragraph] Historical background
After the end of World War II, football was fully revived all over the world, but it was only through the competition of national teams that the sport was popularized in all countries. By 1953, Wembley Stadium was full of England's 3-6 friendly defeat to Hungary. The same is true of international competitions between clubs. The overseas expeditions of Hungarian speight Hongweide, English Arsenal, Argentine Riverbed and Italian Juventus often attract a large number of fanatical fans. However, there is little communication between the national team and the club level. There are no international competitions between European clubs except for some competitions, such as the Mitteropa Cup and the Latin Cup. At this time, Frenchman Gabriel Yano put forward the idea of establishing the European Champions Cup, 1955. Former French international Arno is the founder of the European Footballer of the Year Award, and he also writes for L 'Equipe and French Football Magazine. He has a keen feeling that there may be a brand-new competition that will bring together the top clubs in Europe. He suggested that famous clubs all over the world should create a new tournament by league system. At that time, UEFA was in full swing, and the first congress was scheduled for March 2, 1955. They are more concerned about internal organizations and how to win the national association to join their organizations. At that time, it had no conditions to support this ambitious and striking idea put forward by the French. The sponsors of the European Champions Cup actively contacted FIFA and UEFA, but the results were disappointing. Neither organization is very interested in playing without a national team. At that time, the club-level international competitions held in continental Europe mainly included the Mitteropa Cup and the Latin Cup. Central European countries began to hold the Mitteropa Cup from 1927. At first, the competition was only played between Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia. Later, Italy, Romania, Switzerland and the team were accepted. Latin roots began in 1949, and teams from Portugal, Spain, Italy and France participated in it, which was a household name at that time. However, all these competitions, as well as some other small-scale competitions, are limited to exchanges between dry areas and do not include exchanges between the whole continent. Yano's plan was warmly welcomed by Real Madrid, Anderlecht, rapid vienna Club and Hungarian Football Association. Other clubs hesitate or raise objections due to schedule conflicts, players' remuneration, night lighting and other reasons. Team newspaper entrusted Zaoyakde Risvik, a director of its editorial department, to organize a meeting attended by representatives of the then European host clubs to determine the competition form between European clubs. Santiago Bernabeu, president of Real Madrid, Spain, is one of the staunch supporters of the European Club Cup. The club he led has made many achievements in international competitions. In order to go further, he continued to take some effective measures, such as hiring several famous stars at that time: Argentine Stifano and Rial. The meeting was held on April 2-3, 1955. Although UEFA reiterated at the Vienna Executive Committee meeting a month ago that it would not cooperate with non-national teams, it still could not prevent the associations from sending representatives to Paris. The French newspaper L 'Equipe sent out 18 invitations, of which only two club representatives did not attend. One is Scotland's Edinburgh Irish team, but it agreed to take part in the new competition; The other is Dynamo Moscow of the Soviet Union, who explained that it was difficult to attend the meeting in the severe winter of the Soviet Union. At this historic meeting, the clubs reached an agreement on the competition system: the competition was attended by league champions from all countries; If the home and away elimination system is adopted, or the points and goal difference of the two teams are the same, a play-off will be played in the third game; The final of the Champions League must be held at the stadium determined in advance by UEFA; When playing in our team's stadium, the ticket income, advertising fee and TV broadcast fee will be handled by the host. At this meeting, an executive committee was also established, with Santiago Bernabeu as the first vice-chairman. The Committee is responsible for drafting the main points of the European Champions Cup and informing FIFA for understanding. The European Football Association will hold another cup to replace the European Champions Cup proposed by L 'Equipe and most European clubs. The cup held by UEFA is not for club teams, but for city teams. The purpose is to strengthen friendly ties and sports exchanges between European cities. This proposal was supported by the English Football Association, which was dissatisfied with its failure to participate in the creation of the European Club Cup. This is the practice of the English Football Association, and the British always take a contemptuous attitude towards things that have not been studied in their own country. In fact, in the 1920s, four British football associations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) were at odds with FIFA. They quit the organization and stopped participating in the Olympic Games and previous World Cups. Stanley Rous, then secretary-general of the English Football Association, made it clear that the organization opposed the establishment of non-state and non-city competitions. He advocated organizing more friendship competitions among European people, clubs, cities, factories, youth organizations and schools. Later, in June 1955, UEFA held the Cup of the International Urban Industry Expo, which was held three months earlier than the first European Champions Cup. However, despite UEFA's good intention to host the World Expo Cup, it can't stop this event from becoming a second-rate event. The first game dragged on for three years. The last match was between Barcelona and London in May 1958+0. During this period, three European Champions Cups have been held. From 65438 to 0955, the development of the situation made FIFA change its view on the club's Champions League. They saw that the game really looked like that. In addition, the level of the participating teams is also very high. For example, Andre Lecht of Belgium, rapid vienna of Austria, Sporting Lisbon of Portugal and Real Madrid of Spain. On the other hand, after the first TV broadcast of the World Cup held in Switzerland from 65438 to 0954 and its success, the possibility of European TV organizations supporting the European Champions Cup increased, which means expanding their influence and making money. At the suggestion of FIFA, UEFA began to reconsider its opposition to the Champions League. UEFA put forward conditions for the organizers of the European Champions Cup to return the right to organize the competition to UEFA, and the participation of club teams in the competition must be approved by their national associations. After the proposed conditions were accepted, the UEFA Executive Committee held a meeting in Paris on May 2 1, 1955, inviting all interested clubs to participate. It was decided that UEFA would organize the tournament itself and rename it the European Champions Cup instead of the original European Club Cup. The British still refuse to recognize the Champions League and ban Chelsea from the first game. However, the first European Champions Cup started in September 1955 and ended in Paris in May 1956, and Real Madrid won the championship. 1968 greatly revised the rules of the competition, that is, set up seed teams in the preliminary stage to avoid the premature meeting of strong teams. Another major change is to "control" the lottery to prevent countries with political disputes (such as the Soviet Union and Albania, Greece and Turkey). ) from the same group. Since 1969, the practice of playing play-offs when the points and goal difference of the two teams are the same has been cancelled; But in the case of the same score and goal difference, the victory or defeat is decided according to the number of goals scored by the other team on the field, which is what we often call "double goals away from home." The purpose of doing this is to try to avoid teams adopting too conservative defensive tactics in the other team's field. If there is a draw in the final, overtime will be used. If there is still no tie, a play-off will be held. This happened only once in 1974. Bayern Munich beat Atletico Madrid 4-0 in the play-off and started their third consecutive championship. 1992 The semi-final of the European Champions Cup was introduced into the group round robin, and the first two teams played the final. So the game was renamed the European Cup, but people still used to call it the European Cup. In the following years, the competition system of the Champions League changed frequently, and the competition before the rematch gradually adopted the group round robin system. Teams participating in the competition are no longer limited to national league champions, and runners-up of some football powers can also participate. Manchester United 1999 won the championship magically, and they participated in the competition as the runner-up in the league. All these changes are to increase the number of games and make the participating teams get more benefits. 1998, in order to prevent major clubs from establishing a European super league, the UEFA Finals carried out the biggest reform in the history of the three major European cups from the 1999/2000 season: the European Cup Winners was cancelled. According to the ranking of European club competition results, countries can send 1-4 teams to participate in the European Champions Cup; In the Champions League, there are two stages of group round robin. In the first stage, the third place in each group can continue to participate in the UEFA Cup.
[Edit this paragraph] trophy introduction
The trophy of the European Champions League is called the Saint Ballard Cup (commonly known as the Big Ear Cup). The big ear cup is now the sixth trophy. Because UEFA stipulates that teams that win five or three consecutive championships can keep the original trophy forever. 1966, according to the new rules, Real Madrid, which won the championship for the sixth time, kept the first original trophy forever. At that time, UEFA Secretary-General Bangert decided to redesign a trophy, so he handed this important task to Swiss expert Stadell Mann. Soon, Stadell Mann and his father came to Bangert's office with a lot of drawings. Bangert expressed many opinions on all the design schemes. He said that Germans might like the base of this scheme, while Bulgarians might like the cup mouth of that scheme. So everyone brainstormed and reassembled many designs like a jigsaw puzzle, and decided the final design scheme. Stadell Mann said, "I remember we had to finish it before March 28th, 1967, because I'm going to the United States for my honeymoon. We worked overtime for 340 hours and finally finished it before the deadline. " After that, Ajax and Bayern Munich won three consecutive championships, and AC Milan and Liverpool won the championship for the fifth time, so they each collected a trophy, and now this trophy is the sixth. Uefa stipulates that the winning team must return the trophy before the final next season, but they can keep a replica, but the replica cannot exceed four-fifths of the original size.
[Edit this paragraph] Event progress
Qualifying for the Champions League has opened the door for the champions of UEFA countries, and top teams from all countries have the opportunity to participate. According to the coefficient ranking of national football associations, UEFA determines the number of countries participating in the Champions League and the stage of starting the competition. Evolution Since the establishment of the 1992/93 season, the European Champions League has been developing on the premise of maintaining the group round robin and the traditional elimination system. The current competition system began in the 2003/04 season. After three rounds of preliminaries, 32 clubs were divided into 8 groups, with 4 teams in each group. The first and second place in the group advanced to the knockout stage, and the third place in the eight groups entered the third round of the UEFA Cup. The fourth place in the eight groups was eliminated. Before 16, the competition will be decided by drawing lots, and each team will play two rounds of home and away games. In the knockout round, the one who scored more goals in two rounds advanced. If the total number of goals is the same, the side with more away goals will advance. If the number of away goals is the same, the first half and the second half will be overtime 15 minutes, and it will be played immediately after the second round. If the number of goals scored by both sides in overtime is still the same, then the number of goals scored by the visiting team in overtime will double, that is, the visiting team will advance. If neither side scores in overtime, it will be decided by penalty kick. The two teams that emerged from the knockout stage entered the finals held in May. The competition system has evolved. Before the season of 1992/93 was changed to the European Champions Cup, the competition system of the European Club Champions Cup was a pure elimination system. From 1992/93 season to three-round elimination. The eight teams that advanced were divided into two groups, four teams in each group played round robin matches at home and away, and the first place in the two groups entered the finals. The following season was fine-tuned on the basis of the above-mentioned competition system, and it was changed to the top two in the quarter-finals, and two rounds of semi-finals were added before the final. 1994/95 The European Champions League was expanded and a round of qualifiers was held first. Qualified teams are divided into four groups, and each group has four teams for group round robin. The top two in each group advanced to the knockout stage, starting with the final of 1/4. 1997/98 season, the European champions league was expanded again, and two rounds of qualifiers were introduced, and the group stage was also increased to 6 groups with 4 teams in each group. The first place in the six groups and the second place in the two best groups advanced to the knockout stage. 1999/2000 season added a round of qualifiers, and the European Champions League added another round of qualifiers, so the group stage is also divided into two stages. In the first stage, 32 teams were divided into 8 groups with 4 teams in each group, and each team played 6 games. The top two of the eight groups entered the second stage of the group stage and the third entered the third round of the UEFA Cup. In the second stage of the group stage, the quarter-finals advanced to the knockout stage. In the 2003/2004 season, the second stage of the European Champions League was cancelled, that is, the top 16 was directly eliminated until the champion was decided. In 2009/20 10 season, one more round of group matches and one more round of qualifiers in the Champions League. UEFA's most important club event, the Champions League, will start from the 2009/ 10 season. According to the decision made by the UEFA Executive Committee in June 2007, some noticeable reforms will be implemented. The main changes include: the main competition system of the Champions League remains unchanged, and there are still 32 teams participating in the group stage, which are divided into 8 groups with 4 teams in each group. After the group stage is the knockout stage, the third place in the eight groups in the group stage will enter the European League, which is the original UEFA Cup. The qualification criteria for the 2009/ 10 season are revised as follows: the number of teams directly entering the group stage will be increased from 16 to 22 (2 1 team+defending champion), and the three football associations with the highest UEFA points 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. 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. How to win the championship: In the first round of qualifying, the six teams with UEFA points ranking 48-53 will be divided into three pairs for two rounds of home and away elimination. Three champions entered the second round of qualifiers, and the champions of the 3 1 Football Association (except Liechtenstein) ranked by UEFA from 16 to 47 directly entered 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. The champions ranked by UEFA from 13 to 15 directly entered the third round, and 20 teams were eliminated in 10 pairs. 10 The winning team entered the play-off (the fourth qualifying round), divided into five pairs for the home and away two-round knockout, and the five winners entered the Champions League group stage. Ranking method: The 6th runner-up of UEFA and the 9th runner-up of UEFA entered the third qualifying round 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 3 in Europe and the runner-up of the Football Association ranked 4-5. 10 teams were also eliminated in five pairs, and the winners of the five pairs entered the Champions League group stage. Teams that enter the qualifiers through champions and rankings 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). The third place in the eight groups of the Champions League group stage will all enter the knockout stage of the top 32 of the European League, and 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 group stage. The first knockout round of the Champions League will be held in four weeks instead of the original two weeks. Make full use of the match days reserved for UEFA club matches in February and March to increase the chances of live broadcast of matches. The Champions League final will be changed to the weekend, and the kick-off time will be 20:45 Central European Time. The Champions League play-offs will enjoy the same cooperation rights as the group stage.