UEFA Champions League 2022
The 2022–23 UEFA Champions League is the 68th season of Europe’s premier club football tournament organized by UEFA, and the 31st since it was renamed the UEFA Champions League from the European Champion Clubs’ Cup.
The final will be played at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey. The stadium was originally appointed to host the 2020 UEFA Champions League final, but both it and the 2021 final, which was later reallocated to Atatürk, were moved due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The winner of the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League will automatically qualify for the group stage of the 2023–24 UEFA Champions League and also earn the right to play against the winner of the 2022–23 UEFA Europa League in the 2023 UEFA Super Cup.
Real Madrid, the defending champions, won a record-extending fourteenth title in the previous edition. A total of 78 teams from 53 of the 55 UEFA member associations participate in the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League (the exception being Russia, who are banned from participating in 2022 due to Russian aggression in Ukraine and Liechtenstein, [To LIE] which will not host a domestic league). The association ranking based on the UEFA association coefficient is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association
The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL) is an annual club football competition organized by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, with a round robin group stage deciding the winners of the competition to qualify for the double. -legged knockout format, and a single leg final. 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 association.
In 1955, the Coupe des Clubs Champions Européens (French for European Champion Club Cup), and commonly known as the European Cup, was initially a direct knockout tournament open only to the champions of Europe’s domestic leagues, the winners of which counted. European Club Champions. The competition assumed its current name in 1992, added a round-robin group stage in 1991, and allowed multiple entrants from certain countries from the 1997–98 season. It has since expanded, and most national leagues in Europe still only have their champions, with the strongest leagues now offering up to four teams. Clubs that finish next in line in their national leagues, not qualifying for the Champions League, qualify for the second-tier UEFA Europa League competition, and from 2021, teams that do not qualify for the UEFA Europa League qualify for the third. Level UEFA Europa Conference League.
In the current 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 the 26 teams that qualified in advance. The 32 teams are divided into eight groups of four teams and will play each other in a double round-robin format. Eight group winners and eight runners-up advance to the knockout stages, which conclude with a final match in late May or early June. The Champions League winner qualifies for next year’s Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup.
Spanish clubs have the most number of wins (19 wins), followed by England (14 wins) and Italy (12 wins). England has the most winning teams, with five clubs winning the title. The competition has been won by 22 clubs, of which 13 have won it more than once and eight have successfully defended their title. Real Madrid are the most successful club in the history of the tournament, having won it 14 times, including the first five seasons and five of the last nine. Only one club has won all of their matches in a single tournament en route to winning the tournament: Bayern Munich in the 2019–20 season. Real Madrid, the reigning European champions, beat Liverpool 1-0 in the 2022 final.