| Tourney Name: | UEFA Champions League |
| Year: | 2017–18 |
| Size: | 280px |
| Dates: | Qualifying: 27 June – 23 August 2017 Competition proper: 12 September 2017 – 26 May 2018 |
| Num Teams: | Competition proper: 32 Total: 79 |
| Associations: | 54 |
| Champion Other: |  Real Madrid |
| Count: | 13 |
| Second Other: | Liverpool |
| Matches: | 125 |
| Goals: | 401 |
| Top Scorer: | Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) 15 goals |
| Player: |
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| Prevseason: | 2016–17 |
| Nextseason: | 2018–19 |
The 2017–18 UEFA Champions League was the 63rd season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 26th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League.
The final was played between Real Madrid and Liverpool at the NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium in Kyiv, Ukraine.[1] Real Madrid beat Liverpool 3-1 to win a record-extending 13th title, their third title in a row and fourth in five seasons.
As winners, Real Madrid qualified as the UEFA representative for the 2018 FIFA Club World Cup in the United Arab Emirates, and also earned the right to play against the winners of the 2017–18 UEFA Europa League, Atlético Madrid, in the 2018 UEFA Super Cup, winning the former. Additionally, they would have been automatically qualified for the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League group stage,[2] but since they had already qualified through their league performance, the berth reserved was given to the champions of the 2017–18 Czech First League, the 11th-ranked association according to the 2018–19 access list.[3] This edition of the Champions League was particularly influenced by controversial refereeing decisions, such as two clear penalties not given to AS Roma in the semifinal. These controversies were among the reasons that pushed UEFA to introduce VAR in the competition starting from the 2018-19 UEFA Champions League.[4]
79 teams from 54 of the 55 UEFA member associations participated (the exception being Liechtenstein, which did not organise a domestic league).[5] The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:[6]
Kosovo, who became a UEFA member on 3 May 2016, made their debut in the UEFA Champions League.[8]
For the 2017–18 UEFA Champions League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2016 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2011–12 to 2015–16.[9] [10]
Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below:
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In the default access list, the Champions League title holders entered the group stage.[11] However, since Real Madrid already qualified for the group stage (as the champions of the 2016–17 La Liga), the Champions League title holders berth in the group stage was given to the Europa League title holders, Manchester United.[12] [13] [14] [15] and the following changes to the default allocation system are made:
| Teams entering in this round | Teams advancing from previous round | |||
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| First qualifying round (10 teams) |
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| Second qualifying round (34 teams) |
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| Third qualifying round | Champions Route (20 teams) |
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| League Route (10 teams) |
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| Play-off round | Champions Route (10 teams) |
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| League Route (10 teams) |
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| Group stage (32 teams) |
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| Knockout phase (16 teams) |
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League positions of the previous season qualified via league position shown in parentheses. Manchester United qualified as Europa League title holders. (TH: Champions League title holders; EL: Europa League title holders).[16] [17]
The schedule of the competition was as follows (all draws were held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, unless stated otherwise).[11] [18] [19]
| Phase | Round | Draw date | First leg | Second leg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qualifying | First qualifying round | 19 June 2017 | 27–28 June 2017 | 4–5 July 2017 |
| Second qualifying round | 11–12 July 2017 | 18–19 July 2017 | ||
| Third qualifying round | 14 July 2017 | 25–26 July 2017 | 1–2 August 2017 | |
| Play-off | Play-off round | 4 August 2017 | 15–16 August 2017 | 22–23 August 2017 |
| Group stage | Matchday 1 | 24 August 2017 (Monaco) | 12–13 September 2017 | |
| Matchday 2 | 26–27 September 2017 | |||
| Matchday 3 | 17–18 October 2017 | |||
| Matchday 4 | 31 October – 1 November 2017 | |||
| Matchday 5 | 21–22 November 2017 | |||
| Matchday 6 | 5–6 December 2017 | |||
| Knockout phase | Round of 16 | 11 December 2017 | 13–14 & 20–21 February 2018 | 6–7 & 13–14 March 2018 |
| Quarter-finals | 16 March 2018 | 3–4 April 2018 | 10–11 April 2018 | |
| Semi-finals | 13 April 2018 | 24–25 April 2018 | 1–2 May 2018 | |
| Final | 26 May 2018 at NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium, Kyiv | |||
See main article: 2017–18 UEFA Champions League qualifying phase and 2017–18 UEFA Champions League qualifying phase and play-off round.
In the qualifying rounds and the play-off round, teams were divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their 2017 UEFA club coefficients,[20] [21] [22] and then drawn into two-legged home-and-away ties. Teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other.
The third qualifying round was split into two separate sections: Champions Route (for league champions) and League Route (for league non-champions). The losing teams in both sections entered the 2017–18 UEFA Europa League play-off round.
See main article: 2017–18 UEFA Champions League play-off round.
The play-off round was split into two separate sections: Champions Route (for league champions) and League Route (for league non-champions). The losing teams in both sections entered the 2017–18 UEFA Europa League group stage.
See main article: article and 2017–18 UEFA Champions League group stage.
The draw for the group stage was held on 24 August 2017, 18:00 CEST, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.[23] The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots based on the following principles (introduced starting 2015–16 season):[24] [25]
In each group, teams played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advanced to the round of 16, while the third-placed teams entered the 2017–18 UEFA Europa League round of 32. The matchdays were 12–13 September, 26–27 September, 17–18 October, 31 October – 1 November, 21–22 November, and 5–6 December 2017.
The youth teams of the clubs that qualified for the group stage also participated in the 2017–18 UEFA Youth League on the same matchdays, where they competed in the UEFA Champions League Path (the youth domestic champions of the top 32 associations competed in a separate Domestic Champions Path until the play-offs).
Seventeen national associations were represented in the group stage. Qarabağ and RB Leipzig made their debut appearances in the group stage. Qarabağ were the first team from Azerbaijan to play in the Champions League group stage.[26] For the first time since the 1997–98 edition, England's Arsenal did not qualify for the group stage.
See main article: article and 2017–18 UEFA Champions League knockout phase.
In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final. The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:
Statistics exclude qualifying rounds and play-off round.
| Rank[27] | Player | Team | Goals | Minutes played |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cristiano Ronaldo | Real Madrid | 15 | 1170 |
| 2 |  Mohamed Salah | Liverpool | 10 | 930 |
 Sadio Mané | Liverpool | 940 | ||
 Roberto Firmino | Liverpool | 1056 | ||
| 5 |  Wissam Ben Yedder | Sevilla | 8 | 651 |
 Edin Džeko |  Roma | 1078 | ||
| 7 | Harry Kane | Tottenham Hotspur | 7 | 597 |
| Edinson Cavani | Paris Saint-Germain | 680 | ||
| 9 | Neymar | Paris Saint-Germain | 6 | 630 |
 Lionel Messi | Barcelona | 783 |
The UEFA technical study group selected the following 18 players as the squad of the tournament.[28]
See main article: article, UEFA Club Football Awards and UEFA Men's Player of the Year Award. Votes were cast for players of the season by coaches of the 32 teams in the group stage, together with 55 journalists selected by the European Sports Media (ESM) group, representing each of UEFA's member associations. The coaches were not allowed to vote for players from their own teams. Jury members selected their top three players, with the first receiving five points, the second three and the third one. The shortlist of the top three players were announced on 9 August 2018.[29] The award winners were announced and presented during the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League group stage draw in Monaco on 30 August 2018.
| Rank | Player | Team | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shortlist of top three | ||||
| 1 | Keylor Navas[30] | Real Madrid | 222 | |
| 2 | Alisson | Roma | 197 | |
| 3 | Gianluigi Buffon | Juventus | 92 | |
| Players ranked 4–10 | ||||
| 4 | Marc-André ter Stegen | Barcelona | 47 | |
| 5 |  Thibaut Courtois | Chelsea | 28 | |
| 6 | Ederson | Manchester City | 26 | |
| 7 | Hugo Lloris | Tottenham Hotspur | 18 | |
| 8 |  Jan Oblak | Atlético Madrid | 16 | |
| 9 | David de Gea | Manchester United | 7 | |
| 10 | Sven Ulreich | Bayern Munich | 5 | |
| Rank | Player | Team | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shortlist of top three | ||||
| 1 | Sergio Ramos[31] | Real Madrid | 184 | |
| 2 | Raphaël Varane | Real Madrid | 167 | |
| 3 | Marcelo | Real Madrid | 145 | |
| Players ranked 4–10 | ||||
| 4 | Giorgio Chiellini | Juventus | 40 | |
| 5 | Dejan Lovren | Liverpool | 37 | |
| 6 | Virgil van Dijk | Liverpool | 24 | |
| 7 | Diego Godín | Atlético Madrid | 15 | |
| 8 | Joshua Kimmich | Bayern Munich | 14 | |
| 9 | Mats Hummels | Bayern Munich | 13 | |
| 10 | Gerard Piqué | Barcelona | 10 | |
| Rank | Player | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shortlist of top three | |||
| 1 | Luka Modrić[32] | Real Madrid | 347 |
| 2 | Kevin De Bruyne | Manchester City | 114 |
| 3 | Toni Kroos | Real Madrid | 69 |
| Players ranked 4–10 | |||
| 4 | Casemiro | Real Madrid | 40 |
| 5 | James Milner | Liverpool | 18 |
| 6 | Andrés Iniesta | Barcelona | 16 |
| 7 | Ivan Rakitić | Barcelona | 9 |
| 8 | Isco | Real Madrid | 6 |
| Sadio Mané | Liverpool | ||
| Miralem Pjanić | Juventus | ||
 James Rodríguez | Bayern Munich | ||
| Rank | Player | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shortlist of top three | |||
| 1 | Cristiano Ronaldo[33] | Real Madrid | 287 |
| 2 | Mohamed Salah | Liverpool | 218 |
| 3 | Lionel Messi | Barcelona | 43 |
| Players ranked 4–10 | |||
| 4 | Kylian Mbappé | Paris Saint-Germain | 17 |
| 5 | Edin Džeko | Roma | 15 |
| Harry Kane | Tottenham Hotspur | ||
| 7 | Roberto Firmino | Liverpool | 13 |
| 8 | Gareth Bale | Real Madrid | 12 |
| Antoine Griezmann | Atlético Madrid | ||
| Sadio Mané | Liverpool | ||
