uefa.com

 

Europe's premier club competition was launched one month after UEFA's first Congress, held in Vienna on 2 March 1955 yet, curiously, the so-called "European Cup" was not a UEFA initiative.

French founders
Whereas many of UEFA's founder members were more interested in establishing a national team competition, the French sports daily L'Equipe and their then-editor Gabriel Hanot, were championing the cause for a European-wide club competition. Hanot, together with colleague Jacques Ferran, designed a blueprint for a challenge tournament to be played on Wednesdays under floodlights.

Sporting record
The tournament initiated by L'Equipe did not stipulate that the participating teams had to be champions of their country, but they invited clubs who they considered had the most fan appeal. Representatives of 16 clubs were invited to meetings on 2 and 3 April 1955 and the L'Equipe rules were unanimously approved. The first European Champions Clubs' Cup fixture was played in Lisbon and Sporting Clube de Portugal were held to a 3-3 draw by FK Partizan. The Yugoslav side won the return leg in Belgrade 5-2 to advance to the next round.

Madrid dominate
Real Madrid CF immediately made the tournament their own by winning the first five finals. Since then, other clubs have also enjoyed fruitful runs in the competition with AFC Ajax and FC Bayern München both completing three consecutive wins. However, no one club has been able to claim long-term domination. Ajax waited 22 years to add a fourth title to the hat-trick obtained in the early 1970s; Madrid's win in 1998 was their first in 32 years; and Bayern's penalty shoot-out success in Milan in 2001 ended a 26-year wait for their fourth success.

Liverpool success
Liverpool FC's four victories between 1977 and 1984 deserve special mention as the English club won its four trophies with essentially different teams. The Reds' European pedigree shone brightly again in 2005 when they battled back from 3-0 down to defeat AC Milan on penalties in what was perhaps the competition’s most exciting and memorable final.

Honours list
Real Madrid CF have been the most successful side in the UEFA Champions League, winning the competition three times. They are also the most successful side overall with nine triumphs, followed by six for AC Milan, five for Liverpool and four each for Bayern and Ajax. Madrid also hold the record for final appearances, with 12. Milan's 2002/03 success came after a marathon 19 games from the third qualifying round of the competition all the way to their penalty shoot-out success against Juventus FC in the final.

Competition change
The major turning point in the evolution of the competition came in the 1992/93 season when the UEFA Champions League, involving a group phase in addition to the traditional knock-out elements, was officially inaugurated after a pilot group stage during the previous season. The popularity of the group phase has witnessed the competition grow from eight to 32 teams with matches taking place on Tuesdays and Wednesdays across Europe.

uefa.com

 

• No changes to the format of the main competition, which will still involve 32 teams, split into eight groups of four in the group stage, followed by the knockout phase. The eight teams that finish the groups in third place cross over into the knockout phase of the new UEFA Europa League, formerly the UEFA Cup.

• The 2009/10 access list has been changed according to the following principles: 22 teams (21 teams + the titleholder) qualify directly for the group phase instead of 16. The three national associations with the highest UEFA coefficient ranking will each have three teams who gain automatic entry to the group stage, with the countries ranked 4 to 6 in the standings having two automatic qualifiers and the associations ranked 7 to 12 having one.

• As from the 2009/10 season onwards, there will be four qualifying rounds (including a play-off round), to be played in home-and-away ties, to complete the 32 participants in the UEFA Champions League group stage. There are two qualifying routes; the Champions Path and the Best-placed Path.

• Champions Path: The first qualifying round comprises two two-legged ties involving the champions of the countries ranked 50 to 53 in UEFA competition. The winners of those ties progress to the second qualifying round where they are joined by the champions of the 32 countries ranked 17 to 49 (except Liechtenstein). The victorious sides from those 17 ties join the champions from the associations ranked 14 to 16 in the third qualifying round, with the winners of those ten pairings reaching the play-off round. These five play-off ties will take place on a home-and-away basis with the winners qualifying for the UEFA Champions League group stage.

• Best-placed Path: The third-placed side from the sixth-ranked member association, plus the runners-up from the associations ranked 7 to 15, start the competition in the third qualifying round. The winners of these five ties progress to the play-off round, where they are joined by the fourth-placed sides from the associations ranked 1 to 3 and the third-placed teams from the associations ranked 4 and 5. The victorious teams from the five play-off ties qualify for the UEFA Champions League group stage.

• Teams from the Champions Path and the Best-Placed Path cannot meet in UEFA Champions League qualifying.

• The losing team from each of the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round ties will go into the UEFA Europa League play-offs.

• The losing team from each of the UEFA Champions League play-off ties will go into the UEFA Europa League group stage.

• The team who finishes in third position in each of the UEFA Champions League groups goes into the UEFA Europa League Round of 32. The four best third-ranked teams will be seeded for the Round of 32 with the group winners of the UEFA Europa League group stage.

• The matches in the UEFA Champions League first knockout round will be split over four weeks instead of two, using dates reserved for the UEFA club competition in February and March to maximise live match opportunities.

• The final is to be played on a Saturday, with kick-off time at 20.45 CET.

uefa.com

 

On 13 September 1989 a 19-year-old named Roar Strand made his UEFA competition debut as a late substitute in Rosenborg BK's European Champion Clubs' Cup tie with KV Mechelen. Now 40, Strand is gearing up for another UEFA Champions League campaign having just rewritten the record books again.

Last Saturday, Strand – who save for a 1993 loan to Molde FK has remained with Rosenborg – returned from injury to strike four minutes from time against Sandefjord Fotball. Not only did it move unbeaten Rosenborg three points clear at the Norwegian Premier Division summit, but it made the midfielder the only player to score in 21 consecutive seasons of any European top flight, putting him back one ahead of Ryan Giggs.

"I don't think about these sort of things right now but in the future, then I will," Strand told UEFA.com. "I've been lucky to be with a really good team for so many years, I've been happy to be there for that many years. I've been lucky to have so few injuries."

Among more than 600 appearances for Rosenborg, Strand has racked up over 100 games in European competition, including ten separate UEFA Champions League group campaigns, scoring against the likes of Real Madrid CF, Arsenal FC and FC Porto. On Wednesday, Rosenborg begin another bid with a second qualifying round first-leg trip to Linfield FC of Belfast.

"We don't know a lot about Linfield yet, so it's going to be exciting," Strand said. "It will be really difficult to get to the Champions League. We need a bit of luck in the draws and good performances, maybe we can do it."

Naturally, the period when Rosenborg were group-stage regulars brings back happy memories for the former Norwegian international. "We played so many good teams and had so many good results," Strand said. "It's tough to pick out one – we beat AC Milan and Dortmund [both away] and drew 1-1 against Arsenal, these were good matches."

Through most of that period – including the start of a run of 13 straight titles between 1992 and 2004, all but one with Strand – Rosenborg were coached by the man who gave him his senior debut, Nils Arne Eggen. In May, Eggen returned for his fourth spell at the club helm, and few know him better than Strand.

"I have a good relationship with Eggen," Strand said. "He's a good coach and everybody listens when he speaks because he has been such a successful trainer. In the past he had a lot of players that had been there for many years, that was certainly the key."

But can Rosenborg recapture the heights of when they first worked together? Strand admits: "I'm not sure if we can. "We have a good team now but we had a better team in the past. A lot of players had played together for many years" and we knew each other really well. Now we have a few young players, but we can be really good."

TC Admin

Jul 21 2010, 09:25 PM

Ajax v PAOK
Dynamo Kiev v KAA Gent
BSC Young Boys v Fenerbahce
SC Braga v Celtic
Unirea Urziceni v Zenit St Petersburg