About the Champions League

History of the UEFA Champions League:

Although the UEFA Champions League was officially formed way back in 1955, the competition has since undergone a massive overhaul in its running of games and official format.  Prior to 1992 the tournament was officially called the European Champion Club’s Cup, but was referred to more generally as the European Cup (of European Champion’s Cup).  During this time, the competition was initially a straight forward knockout structure which only accepted the champions of each country.  In 1992 however, big changes to Europe’s most elite competition changed the structure to include a round-robin group stage.  Reforms at this point also incorporated more European teams.  The changes to the overall competition subsequently led to a re-naming of the competition as the European Champions League.

Present Format of Champions League

The current Champions League format begins in mid-July with three knockout qualifying rounds and a play-off round.  The 10 teams who make it through this round then join the 22 seeded teams in the group stage (these teams qualified for the Champions League automatically through their domestic league finishings).  There are eight groups in the group stage consisting of four teams each.  The eight group winners and runners up then enter the final knockout phase (each two-legged), which concludes in a final at a pre-selected European location sometime in May.

Champions League Title History

The Champions League Title (aka European Cup) has been won by 21 different teams altogether, of which only 12 have won the title more than once.  Real Madrid are the all-time record holder (9 times), however 5 of these victories included 5 consecutive wins in the competition’s first ever games (1955 – 1959).  Interestingly, since the tournament’s rebranding to the Champions League in 1992, no team has managed consecutive titles (the closest a team has come to achieving this feat was Manchester, who won the 2007-8 Title and appeared in the 2008-9 final the following year – where they lost to Spanish treble winners Barcelona 2-0 in Rome).

Popularity

Widely regarded as the pinnacle of club football, the Champions League is watched on an International scale, with the Final itself receiving the same number of viewers as the NFL’s Super Bowl – receiving approximately over 100 million television viewers.