The 2014–15 UEFA Champions League qualifying phase and play-off round were played from 1 July to 27 August 2014. A total of 55 teams competed in the qualifying phase and play-off round to decide 10 of the 32 places in the group stage of the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League.[1]
All draws were held at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.[2]
| Round | Draw date and time | First leg | Second leg | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First qualifying round | 23 June 2014, 12:00[3] | 1–2 July 2014 | 8–9 July 2014 | |
| Second qualifying round | 15–16 July 2014 | 22–23 July 2014 | ||
| Third qualifying round | 18 July 2014, 12:00[4] | 29–30 July 2014 | 5–6 August 2014 | |
| Play-off round | 8 August 2014, 12:00[5] | 19–20 August 2014 | 26–27 August 2014 |
In the qualifying phase and play-off round, each tie was played over two legs, with each team playing one leg at home. The team that scored more goals on aggregate over the two legs advanced to the next round. If the aggregate score was level, the away goals rule was applied, i.e. the team that scored more goals away from home over the two legs advanced. If away goals were also equal, then 30 minutes of extra time was played. The away goals rule was again applied after extra time, i.e. if there were goals scored during extra time and the aggregate score was still level, the visiting team advanced by virtue of more away goals scored. If no goals were scored during extra time, the tie was decided by penalty shoot-out.[1]
In the draws for each round, teams were seeded based on their UEFA club coefficients at the beginning of the season, with the teams divided into seeded and unseeded pots. A seeded team was drawn against an unseeded team, with the order of legs in each tie decided randomly. Due to the limited time between matches, the draws for the second and third qualifying rounds took place before the results of the previous round were known. For these draws (or in any cases where the result of a tie in the previous round was not known at the time of the draw), the seeding was carried out under the assumption that the team with the higher coefficient of an undecided tie advanced to this round, which means if the team with the lower coefficient was to advance, it simply took the seeding of its defeated opponent. Prior to the draws, UEFA may form "groups" in accordance with the principles set by the Club Competitions Committee, but they were purely for convenience of the draw and for ensuring that teams from the same association were not drawn against each other, and did not resemble any real groupings in the sense of the competition.[1]
There were two routes which the teams were separated into during qualifying:
A total of 55 teams (40 in Champions Route, 15 in League Route) were involved in the qualifying phase and play-off round. The 10 winners of the play-off round (5 in Champions Route, 5 in League Route) advanced to the group stage to join the 22 automatic qualifiers. The 15 losers of the third qualifying round entered the Europa League play-off round, and the 10 losers of the play-off round entered the Europa League group stage.[1]
Below were the participating teams (with their 2014 UEFA club coefficients),[6] grouped by their starting rounds.[7]
| Key to colours | |
|---|---|
| Winners of the play-off round advanced to the group stage | |
| Losers of the play-off round entered the Europa League group stage | |
| Losers of the third qualifying round entered the Europa League play-off round |
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A total of six teams played in the first qualifying round.[8] The draw was held on 23 June 2014.[9]
| width=50% | Seeded | width=50% | Unseeded | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| valign=top | Levadia Tallinn HB FC Santa Coloma | valign=top | Banants La Fiorita Lincoln Red Imps |
The first legs were played on 1 and 2 July, and the second legs were played on 8 July 2014.|}
3–3 on aggregate; FC Santa Coloma won on away goals.----HB won 6–3 on aggregate.----Levadia Tallinn won 8–0 on aggregate.
A total of 34 teams played in the second qualifying round:[8] 31 teams which entered in this round, and the three winners of the first qualifying round. The draw was held on 23 June 2014.[9]
| Group 1 | Group 2 | Group 3 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| width=16% | Seeded | width=16% | Unseeded | width=16% | Seeded | width=16% | Unseeded | width=16% | Seeded | width=16% | Unseeded | |
| valign=top | BATE Borisov Maccabi Tel Aviv Sheriff Tiraspol Maribor Aktobe | valign=top | Dinamo Tbilisi Skënderbeu Zrinjski Mostar Sutjeska Nikšić FC Santa Coloma | valign=top | Celtic Sparta Prague Partizan Debrecen Slovan Bratislava Ventspils | valign=top | Malmö KR The New Saints Levadia Tallinn Cliftonville HB | valign=top | Steaua București Dinamo Zagreb Ludogorets Razgrad Legia Warsaw Qarabağ HJK | valign=top | F91 Dudelange Strømsgodset St Patrick's Athletic Rabotnički Valletta Žalgiris Vilnius | |
The first legs were played on 15 and 16 July, and the second legs were played on 22 and 23 July 2014.|}
1–1 on aggregate; BATE Borisov won on away goals.----Maccabi Tel Aviv won 3–0 on aggregate.----Aktobe won 4–0 on aggregate.----Maribor won 2–0 on aggregate.----Sheriff Tiraspol won 5–0 on aggregate.----Sparta Prague won 8–1 on aggregate.----Malmö won 1–0 on aggregate.----Slovan Bratislava won 3–0 on aggregate.----Celtic won 5–0 on aggregate.----Debrecen won 2–0 on aggregate.----Partizan won 6–1 on aggregate.----Legia Warsaw won 6–1 on aggregate.----HJK won 2–1 on aggregate.----Dinamo Zagreb won 4–0 on aggregate.----Ludogorets Razgrad won 5–1 on aggregate.----Qarabağ won 5–0 on aggregate.----Steaua București won 3–0 on aggregate.
A total of 30 teams played in the third qualifying round:[10]
The draw was held on 18 July 2014.[11]
| Champions Route | League Route | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group 1 | Group 2 | |||||||||||
| width=16% | Seeded | width=16% | Unseeded | width=16% | Seeded | width=16% | Unseeded | width=16% | Seeded | width=16% | Unseeded | |
| valign=top | Red Bull Salzburg Celtic BATE Borisov Dinamo Zagreb Sheriff Tiraspol | valign=top | Legia Warsaw Debrecen Slovan Bratislava Qarabağ AaB | valign=top | Steaua București APOEL Sparta Prague Ludogorets Razgrad Maccabi Tel Aviv | valign=top | Maribor Partizan Aktobe Malmö HJK | valign=top | Zenit Saint Petersburg Lille Copenhagen Standard Liège Beşiktaş | valign=top | Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk Panathinaikos Feyenoord Grasshoppers AEL Limassol | |
The first legs were played on 29 and 30 July, and the second legs were played on 5 and 6 August 2014.|+Champions Route|}|+League Route|}
Red Bull Salzburg won 3–2 on aggregate.----BATE Borisov won 3–2 on aggregate.----Slovan Bratislava won 2–1 on aggregate.----AaB won 2–1 on aggregate.----4–4 on aggregate; Celtic won on away goals.Second leg forfeited because of a clerical error by Legia Warsaw regarding Bartosz Bereszyński, who had been suspended for three UEFA club competition matches as a result of a red card on matchday 6 of the 2013–14 UEFA Europa League group stage against Apollon Limassol. Normally, he would have been suspended for the two legs against St. Patrick's Athletic and the first leg of the Celtic; however, Legia Warsaw failed to register Bereszyński for the St. Patrick's Athletic matches, meaning he would have had to sit out both legs of this match and the first leg of the next UEFA match. Bereszyński entered the second leg in the 86th minute as an illegal substitute because his suspension had not been legally served; Celtic were therefore awarded the second leg 3–0.----Steaua București won 4–3 on aggregate.----Maribor won 3–2 on aggregate.----APOEL won 4–2 on aggregate.----4–4 on aggregate; Malmö won on away goals.----2–2 on aggregate; Ludogorets Razgrad won on away goals.----Zenit Saint Petersburg won 3–1 on aggregate.----Copenhagen won 2–0 on aggregate.----Beşiktaş won 5–2 on aggregate.----Lille won 3–1 on aggregate.----Standard Liège won 2–1 on aggregate.
A total of 20 teams played in the play-off round:[12]
The draw was held on 8 August 2014.[13]
| Champions Route | League Route | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| width=25% | Seeded | width=25% | Unseeded | width=25% | Seeded | width=25% | Unseeded | |
| valign=top | Red Bull Salzburg Steaua București APOEL Celtic BATE Borisov | valign=top | Ludogorets Razgrad Maribor Slovan Bratislava Malmö AaB | valign=top | Arsenal Porto Zenit Saint Petersburg Bayer Leverkusen Napoli | valign=top | Athletic Bilbao Lille Copenhagen Standard Liège Beşiktaş | |
The first legs were played on 19 and 20 August, and the second legs were played on 26 and 27 August 2014.|+Champions Route|}|+League Route|}
Maribor won 2–1 on aggregate.----Malmö won 4–2 on aggregate.----APOEL won 5–1 on aggregate.----1–1 on aggregate; Ludogorets Razgrad won on penalties.----BATE Borisov won 4–1 on aggregate.----Arsenal won 1–0 on aggregate.----Zenit Saint Petersburg won 4–0 on aggregate.----Bayer Leverkusen won 7–2 on aggregate.----Porto won 3–0 on aggregate.----Athletic Bilbao won 4–2 on aggregate.
There were 212 goals in 90 matches in the qualifying phase and play-off round, for an average of 2.36 goals per match.[14]
| Rank | Player | Team | Goals | Minutes played |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | David Lafata | Sparta Prague | 8 | 262 |
| 2 | Miroslav Radović | Legia Warsaw | 5 | 358 |
| 3 | Markus Rosenberg | Malmö | 4 | 540 |
| 4 | Stefan Kießling | Bayer Leverkusen | 3 | 163 |
| Levi Hanssen | HB | 3 | 270 | |
| Demba Ba | Beşiktaş | 3 | 298 | |
| Danko Lazović | Partizan | 3 | 305 | |
| Cillian Sheridan | APOEL | 3 | 329 | |
| Tomás De Vincenti | APOEL | 3 | 330 | |
| Petar Škuletić | Partizan | 3 | 343 | |
| Ibrahima Sidibe | Debrecen | 3 | 353 | |
| Michał Żyro | Legia Warsaw | 3 | 354 | |
| Agim Ibraimi | Maribor | 3 | 519 | |
| Callum McGregor | Celtic | 3 | 540 |
| Rank | Player | Team | Assists | Minutes played |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michał Kucharczyk | Legia Warsaw | 3 | 234 |
| Josef Hušbauer | Sparta Prague | 3 | 249 | |
| Marat Khairullin | Aktobe | 3 | 296 | |
| Domagoj Antolić | Dinamo Zagreb | 3 | 311 | |
| Tomás De Vincenti | APOEL | 3 | 330 | |
| Darko Brašanac | Partizan | 3 | 353 | |
| Michał Żyro | Legia Warsaw | 3 | 354 | |
| Anderson Mineiro | Aktobe | 3 | 360 | |
| Alexandru Chipciu | Steaua București | 3 | 445 | |
| Adrian Popa | Steaua București | 3 | 448 |