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.
In 2003, UEFA carried out a new reform on the competition system of the Champions League. The new rules cancel the second-stage regrouping system and change it to the first 16 after the first stage. Two rounds of home and away games will be played directly until the final top two are produced, and then the final ownership of the Champions League will be decided by a finals.