UEFA Champions League - Betting Odds, Favourites, History, Format and Past Winners
UEFA Champions League is the biggest club football competition, featuring the top 32 football clubs from Europe to decide the ultimate winner of club football in Europe. With a rich history of values and traditions, the competition is as good as it ever gets.
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Here are the betting odds for winning the 2022/23 edition of the competition:
Source: Bet365
Time Stamp: May 15th, 2023 3:59 pm EST
Odds Subject to Change
Man City -150
Inter Milan +300
Real Madrid +450
AC Milan +2800
Use our Odds Converter to view the Decimal and Fractional formats.
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History:The inaugural edition of the UEFA Champions League was held in 1955. Back then, the competition was named European Cup, which featured 16 football teams from Italy, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Poland, Scotland, Yugoslavia, Netherlands, Austria, Spain, West Germany, Saar, Switzerland, Portugal, France, and Hungary.
Real Madrid from Spain had emerged as the undisputed winner of the European Cup.
Format:
UEFA Champions League follows a double round-robin group stage format which is followed by double-legged knockout matches and a single-legged final.
Teams and Groups:
Thirty-two teams in the UEFA Champions League are divided into 8 groups of 4 teams each. The teams in a group play each other twice (double round robin) in home and away matches. The top two teams from each group qualify for the round of 16. These are followed by the quarterfinals, semi-finals, and the ultimate final.
Draws:
The much-anticipated UEFA Champions League Draws determine team divisions in groups and the fixtures in knockout stages.
Qualification:
Out of the 32 teams, 26 teams directly qualify for the group stages of the UEFA Champions League, while 6 teams compete in the qualification round to make their way to the main competition.
4 Teams from the English Premier League qualify for the UEFA Champions League on the basis of their rankings on the English Premier League Table. The top three sides on the premier league table qualify directly for the group stage, while the fourth side competes in the qualification round of the Champions League.
The same format is followed for the Spanish league, LA Liga, and the German league Bundesliga.
Serie A is the premier football competition in Italy, and the top three teams from the league qualify for the UEFA Champions League. Among them, the top two sides qualify directly for the group stage, while the third-ranked team competes in the qualifiers.
Just like Serie A, three teams qualify from France’s Ligue 1 and Portugal’s Liga Portugal.
Teams from other European Leagues are decided on the basis of UEFA’s list of associations and UEFA Coefficient.
Relegation to Europa League:
While the top two teams from each UCL group qualify for the knockouts, the third-placed team in each group is relegated to Europa League. Thus, 8 teams from UEFA Champions League play in the Europa League once their campaign gets over in UCL.
Past Winners:
Real Madrid:
Real Madrid has been the most successful club in the UEFA Champions League history, with a record 14 titles. They have been dominating UCL since its inaugural edition, as they won the first five editions of the competition. They are also the defending champions of UCL and are scheduled to play their round of 16 matches against Liverpool following winter break.
Real Madrid won their UCL titles in 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1966, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2022.
AC Milan:
AC Milan has been the second most successful UCL team with 7 titles. Their titles came in 1963, 1969, 1989, 1990, 1994, 2003, and 2007.
Bayern Munich and Liverpool:
Both Bayern Munich and Liverpool have won 6 UCL titles each. Bayern won their titles in 1974, 1975, 1976, 2001, 2013, and 2020 while Liverpool recorded their championships in 1977, 1978, 1981, 1984, 2005, and 2019.
FC Barcelona:
Barcelona won 5 Champions League Titles in 1992, 2006, 2009, 2011, and 2015. In recent years, they have not tasted much success and recently got relegated to the Europa League.
Individual Records:
Among players, Cristiano Ronaldo leads the records with the most appearances (183) and most goals (140) in the UEFA Champions League history. He is followed by Lionel Messi with 129 goals in 161 UCL matches. Messi is the third most-capped player in the league’s history.
UEFA Player of the Season:
UEFA introduced the prestigious UCL player of the season award for the 2021-22 season. Karim Benzema from Real Madrid won the prize for the 2021-22 season.
UCL 2023 Final:
The current season of the UEFA Champions League is scheduled to end on Saturday, 10thJuna, 2023. The final is scheduled to take place at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey.
