The Champions League is the top club competition in Europe and has given rise to some of football’s biggest stars, from Johan Cruyff to Lionel Messi. The tournament was first played in 1992-93 and is now a fixture in the calendars of Europe’s best sides. It’s been dominated by the traditional powerhouses of the continent, but there have been some surprise winners as well, most recently Porto in 2004 and Dynamo Kyiv in 1998-99.
The tournament’s current format sees 32 clubs split into eight groups for a randomized draw, with no more than two teams from the same country allowed to be drawn together. In the group stage, each team plays the other teams twice – once at home and once away – earning three points for a win and one point for a tie. After the group stage, the tournament enters a single knockout phase with quarter-finals, semi-finals (both two legged) and a final at a venue decided by UEFA prior to the season.
From 2024-25, UEFA will change the competition’s structure. The number of participating clubs will increase to 36, with a league phase that will replace the existing group stage and two qualification’streams’.
The second qualification stream will be extended from four to five places, with the two highest-ranked clubs from each national championship qualifying directly. This should ensure a higher level of quality in the competition and make it more appealing to clubs from outside the ‘big six’ leagues, which tend to dominate this phase.