We are not very far away from one of the biggest football tournaments, UEFA Champions League 2024. Football fans have been enjoying this Champions League annually since 1955. In this tournament, a total of 32 teams compete in five rounds for the crown of European soccer. From its history to the basic rules, here in this article, we are going to explore this tournament in brief.
When did the UEFA Champions League start?
The inaugural UEFA Champions League tournament was played during the 1955-56 season, and it was known as the European Cup back then. A total of 16 teams competed in four knockout rounds and in the end, Real Madrid won the first title after defeating Reims. Since then, this tournament has been held every year.
Five years later in 1960, the league was expanded to 32 teams and an additional round was introduced (the rest of the format was the same). In 1992, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) decided to bring some more changes; they started with changing the name to the UEFA Champions League and they also replaced the first round with a group stage.
How are the teams selected in the UEFA Champions League?
The UEFA Champions League is a big competition where teams from different countries participate. The better any country’s clubs do over time, the more spots their country gets in the tournament. There are different factors that decide the number of teams representing each country or association that will enter this tournament.
The higher the UEFA coefficients a club has, the higher their chances are to be selected. These coefficients are like scores that each association earns based on how well its clubs have performed in the past few seasons of the Champions League and the Europa League.
Many teams are selected automatically without the need to go through the qualification process. These clubs include the defending Champions League winner, the defending Europa League winner, and teams from associations with high UEFA coefficients ranking. The top 12 associations with the highest coefficients are guaranteed at least one team in the Champions League.
Teams that don’t automatically qualify for the Champions League are selected based on two parameters. First, the teams that won their country’s domestic league. The second stream is for teams that finished second, third, or fourth in these domestic leagues.
UEFA Champions League Format
Once the 32 teams are selected for the UEFA Champions League, they are divided into four pots. There is a restriction that teams from the same country can’t face each other in the group stage. The seeding of teams into these pots is based on their recent performance and rankings.
Pot 1 includes the Champions League and Europa League winners, as well as the champions of the top six associations by UEFA coefficients. The remaining teams are seeded into the other three Pots based on their UEFA club coefficients from the previous seasons. Then 8 groups are formed with each containing 4 clubs.
In the group stage, these 32 teams play in a double round-robin format where each team faces the other three teams twice in their group. The top two teams – winner and runner-up – from each group move ahead to the knockout stage. If two teams have an equal number of points then tiebreakers are used which include points gained in matches between the tied teams, goal difference, goals scored, and so on.
These 16 teams are further split into two groups, each containing 8 teams in the knockout phase. Here it ensured that Clubs from the same group or the same country wouldn’t play against each other. Matches are played over two legs, and the team with the higher aggregate score over the two legs advances. This process continues through the quarterfinals and semifinals, with draws determining matchups. The final match is played as a single match at a neutral venue. Extra time and penalties are used if the game is tied.