UEFA Champions League

The Historical Origin of the European Champions Cup

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: Stefano and Rial of Argentina.

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.

At present, the existing competition system is divided into qualification competition and race competition. Thirty-two teams passed the qualifiers and directly participated in the competition. They were divided into eight groups. Four teams in each group play home and away games, and the top two teams in the group advance to the knockout stage. In the knockout stage, 16 teams killed each other until the final. Regardless of the qualifiers, a team has to go through 13 games to win the championship in the race.

The final is usually held in mid-May every year, and the two teams play one game in a neutral stadium, which can only be a five-star stadium (with a stadium capacity of more than 50,000 people).

Among them, 15 Club won the championship directly from Spain (champion and runner-up), England (champion and runner-up), Italy (champion and runner-up), Germany (champion and runner-up), France (champion and runner-up), Portugal (champion), Greece (champion), Netherlands (champion) and Czech Republic (champion).

In short, it changes every year. A total of 32 teams started the official competition, group competition, 16 nearly 8, 8 into 4, semi-finals and finals.

Qualification to participate in the competition

All leagues organized by UEFA are eligible to participate, except Liechtenstein (which has no leagues). The number of teams each country can send is determined by its league points in UEFA. 1-3 has 4 seats, 4-6 has 3 seats, 7- 15 has 2 seats, and 16 and above have only 1 seat. Similarly, according to the score coefficient of the League of Nations, it is decided whether the team with a certain ranking in the League of Nations will directly participate in the competition, or start from qualifying, and from which round of qualifying. In addition, there is one seat reserved for the defending champion. If the team fails to enter the race through the League of Nations ranking, then he is also eligible to participate in the Champions League. However, there is one exception. UEFA stipulates that no more than four teams can participate in the same country. If the team has four places in the league, it will participate in the UEFA Cup.

Event progress

The Champions League starts from the third qualifying round, and the whole schedule lasts from mid-July to late August. The teams eliminated in the third round of qualifiers are transferred to the UEFA Cup system, and the winning 16 team enters the Champions League.

From mid-September to the beginning of1February, 32 teams were divided into 8 groups, and the grouping was decided by the lottery, and the club's points ranking in UEFA determined which level the team belonged to in the lottery. The top two in each group entered the knockout stage, and the third one joined the UEFA Cup system.

The qualifying team was drawn by lot, and the result of drawing lots in the host-guest knockout match was 16 into 8. The principle of drawing lots is that the teams in the first group and the teams in the second group play in different groups, and clubs in the same country cannot meet.

The form of the top 8 teams will be decided by free drawing, without any restrictions. After the draw, the team's promotion route will be decided. 1/4 finals and semi-finals are home and away. The final will be held in the stadium decided by UEFA in advance, and a game will decide the outcome.

Number of wins

According to the country

National champion time, runner-up time, champion team

Milan, Italy, Inter Milan and Juventus

Spain 1 1 9 Real Madrid, Barcelona

England 10 4 Liverpool, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa

Germany 6-7 Bayern, Dortmund, Hamburg

Netherlands Ajax, Eindhoven, Feyenoord,

Portugal 4-5 Benfica, Porto

France 1 5 Marseille

Scottish Celts

Romania 1 Bucharest star

Serbia 1 Belgrade 1 Red Star

According to the club.

9 times: Real Madrid

7 times: AC Milan

5 times: Liverpool

4 times: Bayern Munich, Ajax

Twice: Juventus, Manchester United, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Nottingham Forest, Benfica and Porto.

1 time: Celtic, Feyenoord, Aston Villa, Hamburg, Bucharest Star, Eindhoven, Red Star Belgrade, Marseille, Dortmund.

Previous champion

1956 Real Madrid

1957 Real Madrid

1958 Real Madrid

1959 Real Madrid

1960 Real Madrid

196 1 benfica

1962 benfica

1963 AC Milan

1964 Inter Milan

1965 Inter Milan

1966 Real Madrid

1967 Celts

1968 Manchester United

1969 AC Milan

1970 feyenoord

197 1 Ajax

1972 Ajax

1973 Ajax

1974 bayern Munich

1975 bayern Munich

1976 bayern Munich

1977 Liverpool

1978 Liverpool

1979 Nottingham forest

Nottingham Forest 1980

198 1 Liverpool

1982 Aston villa

1983 Hamburg

1984 Liverpool

1985 Juventus

1986 Bucharest star

1987 Porto

1988 eindhoven

1989 AC Milan

1990 AC Milan

199 1 Red Star Belgrade

Barcelona 1992

1993 Marseille

1994 AC Milan

1995

1996 Juventus

1997 Dortmund

1998 Real Madrid

1999 Manchester United

Real Madrid 2000

200 1 bayern Munich

Real Madrid in 2002

AC Milan in 2003

2004 Porto wine

Liverpool 2005

Barcelona 2006

AC Milan in 2007