The Champions League 2021-22
Current Holders
The Groups
The Match Balls
Today's Fixtures
The Stats
The 2021–22 UEFA Champions League is the 67th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 30th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League.
The final will be played at the Krestovsky Stadium in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was originally scheduled to be played at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany.[1] However, due to the postponement and relocation of the 2020 final, the final hosts were shifted back a year, with Saint Petersburg instead hosting the 2022 final.[2]
The winners of the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League will automatically qualify for the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League group stage, and also earn the right to play against the winners of the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League in the 2022 UEFA Super Cup.
Holders Chelsea are part of an English quartet in the mix, along with last season's runners-up Manchester City, Liverpool and Manchester United.
Intriguingly, the latter will have the competition's record goalscorer Cristiano Ronaldo in their side.
And for the first time, Lionel Messi will play for someone other than Barcelona in the tournament.
His new club Paris St-Germain will begin as one of the favourites following a summer that has seen them recruit a number of seasoned Champions League campaigners.
There has only been one repeat winner during the modern era of the UEFA Champions League: Real Madrid won three in a row from 2016-18. Chelsea will try to win back-to-back titles after upsetting Manchester City in last season’s all-English final.
AC Milan is back in the Champions League for the first time in seven years, and is eager to make up for lost time. With veterans Olivier Giroud and Zlatan Ibrahimovic in tow, not to mention stylish midfielder and Euro 2020 champion Sandro Tonali, the Rossoneri could make a lot of noise upon their return to the big time.
Format
In each group, teams will play against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The top two teams of each group will advance to the round of 16. The third-placed teams will be transferred to the Europa League knockout round play-offs, while the fourth-placed teams will be eliminated from European competitions for the season.
Tiebreakers
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If two or more teams are tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (see Article 17 Equality of points – group stage, Regulations of the UEFA Champions League):[2]
Due to the abolition of the away goals rule, head-to-head away goals are no longer applied as a tiebreaker starting from this season. However, total away goals are still applied as a tiebreaker.[8]
Accordingly, if in a two-legged tie two teams score the same amount of aggregate goals, the winner of tie would not be decided by the number of away goals scored by each team but always by 30 minutes of extra time, and if the two teams score the same amount of goals in extra time, the winner would be decided by a penalty shoot-out.[4]
Game to watch
Barcelona begin a new era this season following Messi’s exit from the club after he’d guided them to four of their five European crowns over the last 15 years. The Argentine legend is in fact part of a major overhaul of the Catalan side’s squad that has seen up to 11 players leave the Camp Nou.
Despite the upheaval, last season’s Copa del Rey winners have made a solid start to their league campaign with 4-2 and 2-1 wins at home to Real Sociedad and Getafe respectively, sandwiching a 1-1 draw away at Athletic Bilbao.
Bayern and Lewandowski have started the new season in imperious form. The Best FIFA Men’s Player is currently on a club-record run of having scored in each of his last 17 competitive appearances going back to February, while he’s got six goals in the first four matches of the 2021/22 Bundesliga campaign.
His most recent opened the scoring as the German champions beat rivals RB Leipzig 4-1 on Saturday, meaning the Reds have netted 27 times over their last five outings across competitions and are averaging a touch under five a game under Julian Nagelsmann.
Match stats
Current Holders
The Groups
The Match Balls
Today's Fixtures
The Stats
The 2021–22 UEFA Champions League is the 67th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 30th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League.
The final will be played at the Krestovsky Stadium in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was originally scheduled to be played at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany.[1] However, due to the postponement and relocation of the 2020 final, the final hosts were shifted back a year, with Saint Petersburg instead hosting the 2022 final.[2]
The winners of the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League will automatically qualify for the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League group stage, and also earn the right to play against the winners of the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League in the 2022 UEFA Super Cup.
Holders Chelsea are part of an English quartet in the mix, along with last season's runners-up Manchester City, Liverpool and Manchester United.
Intriguingly, the latter will have the competition's record goalscorer Cristiano Ronaldo in their side.
And for the first time, Lionel Messi will play for someone other than Barcelona in the tournament.
His new club Paris St-Germain will begin as one of the favourites following a summer that has seen them recruit a number of seasoned Champions League campaigners.
There has only been one repeat winner during the modern era of the UEFA Champions League: Real Madrid won three in a row from 2016-18. Chelsea will try to win back-to-back titles after upsetting Manchester City in last season’s all-English final.
AC Milan is back in the Champions League for the first time in seven years, and is eager to make up for lost time. With veterans Olivier Giroud and Zlatan Ibrahimovic in tow, not to mention stylish midfielder and Euro 2020 champion Sandro Tonali, the Rossoneri could make a lot of noise upon their return to the big time.
Format
In each group, teams will play against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The top two teams of each group will advance to the round of 16. The third-placed teams will be transferred to the Europa League knockout round play-offs, while the fourth-placed teams will be eliminated from European competitions for the season.
Tiebreakers
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If two or more teams are tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (see Article 17 Equality of points – group stage, Regulations of the UEFA Champions League):[2]
- Points in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
- Goal difference in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
- Goals scored in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
- If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
- Goal difference in all group matches;
- Goals scored in all group matches;
- Away goals scored in all group matches;
- Wins in all group matches;
- Away wins in all group matches;
- Disciplinary points (direct red card = 3 points; double yellow card = 3 points; single yellow card = 1 point);
- UEFA club coefficient.
Due to the abolition of the away goals rule, head-to-head away goals are no longer applied as a tiebreaker starting from this season. However, total away goals are still applied as a tiebreaker.[8]
Accordingly, if in a two-legged tie two teams score the same amount of aggregate goals, the winner of tie would not be decided by the number of away goals scored by each team but always by 30 minutes of extra time, and if the two teams score the same amount of goals in extra time, the winner would be decided by a penalty shoot-out.[4]
Game to watch
Barcelona begin a new era this season following Messi’s exit from the club after he’d guided them to four of their five European crowns over the last 15 years. The Argentine legend is in fact part of a major overhaul of the Catalan side’s squad that has seen up to 11 players leave the Camp Nou.
Despite the upheaval, last season’s Copa del Rey winners have made a solid start to their league campaign with 4-2 and 2-1 wins at home to Real Sociedad and Getafe respectively, sandwiching a 1-1 draw away at Athletic Bilbao.
Bayern and Lewandowski have started the new season in imperious form. The Best FIFA Men’s Player is currently on a club-record run of having scored in each of his last 17 competitive appearances going back to February, while he’s got six goals in the first four matches of the 2021/22 Bundesliga campaign.
His most recent opened the scoring as the German champions beat rivals RB Leipzig 4-1 on Saturday, meaning the Reds have netted 27 times over their last five outings across competitions and are averaging a touch under five a game under Julian Nagelsmann.
Match stats
- Lewandowski won the European Golden Shoe last season with 41 goals. The prolific Pole has scored twice in three career games against Barcelona.
- Bayern won their last meeting with Barcelona 8-2, with Müller and Philippe Coutinho - now back at Barca - each bagging braces in their 2019/20 quarter-final.
- In Alphonso Davies and Josip Stanisic, two of Bayern's most-used back four this season are still eligible for U21 football. A third, Dayot Upamecano, is still only 22.
- Bayern are six-time European champions, most recently lifting Old Big Ears in 2020 as part of a historic sextuple under Nagelsmann's predecessor, Hansi Flick.
- Barcelona No.1 Marc-Andre ter Stegen - Manuel Neuer's understudy for Germany - kept 36 clean sheets in 108 Bundesliga appearances with Borussia Mönchengladbach before moving to Spain in 2014.
- With Messi now at PSG, this will be the first time Bayern have faced Barcelona without the Argentine since November 1998, when sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic scored in a 2-1 win.
