History of champions league



 Season Winner Runner-up

2019-2020           Bayern Munich   PSG

2018-2019 Liverpool Tottenham

2017-2018 Real Madrid Liverpool

2016-2017 Real Madrid Juventus

2015-2016 Real Madrid Atlético Madrid

2014-2015 Barcelona Juventus

2013-2014 Real Madrid Atlético Madrid

2012-2013 Bayern Munich Borussia Dortmund

2011-2012 Chelsea Bayern Munich

2010-2011 Barcelona Manchester United

2009-2010 Internazionale Bayern Munich

2008-2009 Barcelona Manchester United

2007-2008 Manchester United Chelsea

2006-2007 Milan Liverpool

2005-2006 Barcelona Arsenal

2004-2005 Liverpool Milan

2003-2004 Porto Monaco

2002-2003 Real Madrid Juventus

2001-2002 Real Madrid Bayer Leverkusen

2000-2001 Bayern Munich Valencia

1999-2000 Real Madrid Valencia

1998-1999 Manchester United Bayern Munich

1997-1998 Real Madrid Juventus

1996-1997 Borussia Dortmund Juventus

1995-1996 Juventus Ajax

1994-1995 Ajax Milan

1993-1994 Milan Barcelona

1992-1993 Marseille Milan

The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competition winners through a group and knockout format. It is one of the most prestigious football tournaments in the world and the most prestigious club competition in European football, played by the national league champions (and, for some nations, one or more runners-up) of their national associations.


Introduced in 1955 as the European Champion Clubs' Cup, commonly known as European Cup, it was initially a straight knockout tournament open only to the champions of Europe's domestic leagues, with its winner reckoned as the European club champion. The competition took on its current name in 1992, adding a round-robin group stage in 1991 and allowing multiple entrants from certain countries since 1997. It has since been expanded, and while most of Europe's national leagues can still only enter their champion, the strongest leagues now provide up to four teams. Clubs that finish next-in-line in their national league, having not qualified for the Champions League, are eligible for the second-tier UEFA Europa League competition, and from 2021, teams not eligible for the UEFA Europa League will qualify for a new third-tier competition called the UEFA Europa Conference League.



In its present format, the Champions League begins in late June with a preliminary round, three qualifying rounds and a play-off round, all played over two legs. The six surviving teams enter the group stage, joining 26 teams qualified in advance. The 32 teams are drawn into eight groups of four teams and play each other in a double round-robin system. The eight group winners and eight runners-up proceed to the knockout phase that culminates with the final match in late May or early June. The winner of the Champions League qualifies for the following year's Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup. In 2020, the traditional schedule for UEFA matches was disrupted due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The format of the remainder of the tournament was temporarily amended as a result, with the quarter-finals and semi-finals being played as single match knockout ties at neutral venues in Lisbon, Portugal from 12 to 23 August.



Spanish clubs have the highest number of victories (18 wins), followed by England (13 wins) and Italy (12 wins). England has the largest number of winning teams, with five clubs having won the title. The competition has been won by 22 clubs, 12 of which have won it more than once and eight successfully defended their title. Real Madrid is the most successful club in the tournament's history, having won it 13 times, including its first five seasons. Bayern Munich are the reigning champions, having beaten Paris Saint-Germain 1–0 in the 2020 final.

Early tournament

Creation of the European Cup

The Campeonato Sudamericano de Campeones, or "South American Championship of Champions", kicked off in 1948 after years of deliberation and organisation and set into motion the antecedent of the Copa Libertadores. French sports journalist Jacques Ferran became fascinated with the 1948 South American idea of a continental club champions league. The UEFA document on the history of the European Cup confirms that Jacques Ferran and Gabriel Hanot, journalists for the French sports newspaper L'Equipe, were the founding fathers of the European Cup. In interviews to the Brazilian sports TV programme Globo Esporte in 2015 and Chilean newspaper El Mercúrio in 2018, Jacques Ferran said that the South American Championship of Champions was the inspiration for the European Cup: "How could Europe, which wanted to be ahead of the rest of the world, not be able to accomplish a competition of the same kind of the South American one? We needed to follow that example."



The summer of 1953 saw Wolverhampton Wanderers play a friendly match against a South African XI to begin a remarkable run of victories over the next months. Wolves played a series of friendlies against foreign opposition such as Racing Club of Argentina, Spartak Moscow of the Soviet Union, among others, before meeting Honvéd of Hungary in a game televised live on the BBC. The Honvéd team included many of the Hungarian national team. Wolves won the game 3–2, which led their manager Stan Cullis and the British press to proclaim them as "Champions of the World". This was the final spur for Hanot who had long campaigned for a European-wide club tournament to determine who was the best of the continent.


Before we declare that Wolverhampton are invincible, let them go to Moscow and Budapest. And there are other internationally renowned clubs: Milan and Real Madrid to name but two. A club world championship, or at least a European one – larger, more meaningful and more prestigious than the Mitropa Cup and more original than a competition for national teams – should be launched.


The UEFA Congress of March 1955 saw the proposal raised, with approval given in April of that year, and the kick-off of the first European Cup the following season.

The first time when champions of two European leagues met was in what was nicknamed the 1895 World Championship, when English champions Sunderland beat Scottish champions Heart of Midlothian 5-3. Ironically, the Sunderland lineup in the 1895 World Championship consisted entirely of Scottish players - Scottish players who moved to England to play professionally in those days were known as the Scotch Professors.


Prior to that, other "football World Championship" took place, however, those were between Scottish and English cup winners, as the respective leagues were yet established.


Club competitions between teams from European countries trace their origins back as far as 1897, when the Challenge Cup was founded as a competition between clubs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that under normal circumstances would not meet in competition. This competition ran until 1911, with its last winners, Wiener Sportclub, retaining the trophy. Simultaneously, English and Scottish clubs competed in the Football World Championship. The Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy was played for in 1909 and 1911 in Turin, Italy, involving clubs from Italy, Germany, Switzerland and England.


The Challenge Cup is considered to be the forerunner of the first true pan-European club competition, the Mitropa Cup, which came about following the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I. At that time, the various nations of central Europe were introducing professional leagues. The introduction of an international club tournament was intended to assist the new professional clubs financially. The Mitropa Cup was first played for in 1927.


An early attempt to create a cup for national champion clubs of Europe was made by Swiss club Servette in 1930. The tournament called "Coupe des Nations" was a great success and the champions of the ten major European football nations of the time were invited. The cup was won by Hungarian club Újpest. Despite the great success, the tournament was never organised again, due to financial issues.


Following World War II, the reduced standing of the Mitropa Cup led to the foundation of a new competition, the Latin Cup, for teams from France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. This competition was played as a mini-tournament at the end of each season by the league champions from each country.


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