Champions League

The UEFA Champions League is the biggest football tournament in Europe at the base of the clubs organized by UEFA, whose former name was the Champion Club Cup, which was renamed Champions League in the 1992/1993 season.

Champions League

The European Champions League is UEFA's most prestigious club organization. The former name of the European Champion Clubs Cup (trophy 1), the name of the cup 1992-93 season, today in the shape and name has gained.

The first final was played on June 13, 1956 between Real Madrid and Stade Reims (France), and Real Madrid was the first to win the Cup with a score of 4-3. Real Madrid won the first five seasons of the Cup, marking European football. However, the face of the Championship club in the intervening half century has changed a lot. First the British and then the Dutch broke the ranks of the South European teams. British teams ' dominance until 1985 was interrupted by the Heysel disaster. After 1992, Europe's number one cup completely changed its character: the Champions League became the most money-saving football tournament with a revenue of 750 million Swiss francs (600 million dollars in 2005) from sponsors and publishers each year, as well as prestige. The Champions League final is played only in first-rate stadiums and is organized like a show that the whole world will see.

The European football was shaken by the two victories of the British team Wolverhampton Wanderers. In December 1954, the British champion defeated the two strongest representatives of Eastern Europe football, Hungary's Honved, 3-2 and Russia's Spartak 4-0, and made the Grand Slam. British Daily Mail had no drawback at the title of ‘Wolverhampton is the world champion of clubs’ - Wolverhampton is the world champion of clubs'. Who else could have stood up if the British champion had beaten two such strong teams!

Of course, this bragging of the British attracted the European football public immediately. On the one hand, representatives of the Latin Football Real Madrid, Milan and Barcelona are looking at these victories, while Sweden, Austria, and the German teams were angry at their own destruction. Among all these discussions, Gabriel Hanot, head of the football department of the French sports newspaper L'equipe, came up with an idea: the club teams of the leading European football countries would meet the league style every week. So at the end of the season, the biggest European football would be obvious. For example, the president of Real Madrid, count Santiago Bernabeu, said: "We have stadiums of 100,000 people. We're already ready to play these games.’ I'm a European Cup idea, ' he hugged tightly. The British, on the other hand, are close to the suggestion that he compresses the schedule of the match.

After this first offer, the opinion that such a tournament would be more appropriate to play the elimination procedure is not the league style. Hanot's assistant, Jacques Ferran, came together around a table after putting the basics of the tournament on paper. In early 1955, 16 teams were appointed to be invited to the cup. Instead of the league champion, it was decided that the team to represent the country's football best would join the cup. Teams that will meet in the first round are matched with each other without draw (first and last time). UEFA took over the organization of this tournament, called Champion Clubs Cup, as well as the newly established European Union.
First Cup Real Madrid
Perhaps the best count Bernabeu understood how important this cup would become over the next 50 years. According to him, the team winning this trophy will win the title of the biggest in Europe. The 100,000-seat Chamartin Stadium in Madrid has turned into a fortress since the first game. Real Madrid, Gentto and Di Stefano, rivals Servette, partisan and Milan eliminated the French representative Stade de Reims in the Paris final on 13 June 1956. White lightning 1-3 fallen back to the finals 4-3 win the Cup became the first champion.

Cup
Cup
Starting from this first season, all clubs started to form a squad to become the biggest in Europe. At that time, sparse plane journeys and difficult away matches have become impatient. One of these displacement, when returning from Belgrade, crashed in March 1958 on the British Manchester United team. Most of the finalist candidate footballers are dead. This accident was the first major disaster in the league with the European Cup.

Real defeated Fiorentina in 1957 and Milan in 1958. But Bernabeu didn't intend to stop. He has already formed a dream team by adding French star Kopa and Hungarian virtuoso Puskas to his powerful team. His goal was to keep the trophy in Madrid for years. In 1959, once again, he defeated Reims to win the fourth trophy. they won once.

Real did his big show one year later in 1960. In Glasgow, Scotland, 136 thousand spectators stood in front of German Frankfurt. In the beginning of the game against the defeat of 1-0, but they played such a game that Frankfurt did not even resist. With four of Puskas and three of Di Stefano, they won the match 7-3. Real Madrid won the first five cups and became a record before anyone knew what it was.
Southern European Superiority
Real Madrid's dominance ended in 1960-61 when Barcelona was defeated in the quarter-finals. But the superiority of the southern European teams lasted until 1967. First, the Portuguese team Benfica won the cup twice, then Milan and Inter took the cup to Italy. Cesare Maldini, who raised the trophy on behalf of Milan in 1963, was still the father of the captain Paolo Maldini of Milan.

With Real Madrid's sixth championship in 1966, captain Francisco Gento was able to remove this silver cup for the sixth time. After this date, the balance of power in Europe gradually shifted towards the North. First Scotland Celtic in 1967, then England Manchester United moved the Cup to England.

By the 1970s, it was time for the Dutch football explosion. The young Ajax team was gradually starting to fear Europe. But before that, Feyenoord was the first Dutch team to take the cup to the museum in 1970.

The Ajax, led by Johann Cruyff, was such a football in 1970-71 that it was the favorite of the Championship months before the final game. They found a surprise opponent in the final at London's Wembley Stadium: Panatinaykos, financed by the shipowner Onassis. However, the Greek team, Cruyff and his friends who came to this point with the decision of the referee until the finals, could not resist the football and 2-0 was defeated. Ajax repeated this success in the next two seasons. However, first the departure of coach Rinus Michels, and then the transfer of Cruyff to Barcelona in the fall of 1974, ended this domination. The German Bayern Munich took over the flag. Bayern has won three seasons in a row, with important trump cards such as Beckenbauer, Müller and Maier.
British bands on stage
Since 1977, the English teams have literally stamped the cup. Liverpool, at first, almost every British team with stubborn style to win until the last minute, strong defense did not pass competitors. Besides, they went to each of them with thousands of spectators and added the whole thing together. British teams won the Champion Clubs Cup seven times on Jul in eight years. For example, only one League Championship, Nottingham Forest won the Championship club trophy for two consecutive years. Aston Villa won the championship in 1982 with his spare goalkeeper. The British supremacy ended in a disaster in 1985. Liverpool attacked Juventus fans before the final in Brussels ' Heysel Stadium that year, killing 40 people. The images of the Italians who were crushed to death have not been erased from their memories for years. UEFA has banned all English teams from European Cups for five years. Liverpool did not see the face of the Champions League until 2001-02.

During this transition period, Italian teams came into play. When businessman and prospective Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi bought Milan, the team wanted to make it one of the best in Europe. To do this, three Dutch Van Basten, Gullit and Rijkaard'ın staff has added. Milan, 1989 and 1990, twice in the championship, while playing football in the hearts of the throne. In the 1989 final, they scored four goals in 50 minutes to Romanian Steaua with the support of nearly 100,000 spectators.

With private television entering football, The Champion Club Cup changed its name and character after 1991. UEFA has increased the number of matches to raise revenues. For this purpose, starting from the quarterfinals, the league system has been activated. Barcelona's first championship in this format was so successful that the UEFA Cup's name became Champions League the next season. Now, the broadcasting rights were sold at the beginning of the season, and the teams were paid according to the number of matches they played and the number of wins they gained.

Since 1994, the number of teams participating in the Champions League has steadily increased. Especially in Italy, Spain, England, Germany and France, the doors were opened not only for the league champions but also for the second, third and even fourth. All the money taps were opened for the Champions League played with 32 teams. The distribution of 750 million Swiss francs (about 600 million dollars) from sponsors and publishers each year has become more important than winning the trophy.

Champions League winners (1956-2004))
Real Madrid 9 times(1956-1960, 1966, 1998, 2000, 2002)
Milan 6 times(1963, 1969, 1989, 1990, 1994, 2003)
Ajax 4 times (1971-1973, 1995))
Bayern Munich 4 times (1974-1976, 2001))
Liverpool 5 times (1977, 1978, 1981, 1984, 2005)