2021–22 UEFA Women's Champions League explained

Tourney Name:	UEFA Women's Champions League
Year:	2021–22
Size:	275
Dates:	Qualifying rounds: 17 August – 9 September 2021 Competition proper:
Num Teams:	Competition proper: 16 Total: 72
Associations:	50
Champion Other:	Lyon
Count:	8
Second Other:	Barcelona
Matches:	61
Goals:	220
Attendance:	551578
Top Scorer:	Alexia Putellas (11 goals)
Player:	^[1]
Young Player:	Selma Bacha (Lyon)
Prevseason:	2020–21
Nextseason:	2022–23

The 2021–22 UEFA Women's Champions League was the 21st edition of the European women's club football championship organised by UEFA, and the 13th edition since being rebranded as the UEFA Women's Champions League. It was the first edition to feature a double-round-robin group stage, in the same manner as the men's UEFA Champions League.^[2]

The final was held at the Juventus Stadium in Turin, Italy.^[3] The winners of the 2021–22 UEFA Women's Champions League automatically qualified for the 2022–23 UEFA Women's Champions League group stage.

The video assistant referee (VAR), previously only deployed for the final, was used for all matches in the knockout stage.^[4]

On 24 June 2021, UEFA approved the proposal to abolish the away goals rule in all UEFA club competitions, which had been used since 1965. Therefore, if in a two-legged tie, two teams scored the same number of aggregate goals, the winner of tie was not decided by the number of away goals scored by each team, but always by 30 minutes of extra time, and if the two teams scored the same number of goals in extra time, the winner was decided by a penalty shoot-out.^[5]

Barcelona were the defending champions, but lost the final to Lyon, who won a record eighth title.

With all participating countries now allowing full crowds for outdoor sporting events, attendance (from Group Stage onward) zoomed up to 552k, more than doubling the competition's previous record of 228k from the 2016-17 edition, helped by record crowds for women's club football (over 90,000) at both knockout matches held at Camp Nou.^[6]

Association team allocation

The association ranking based on the UEFA women's country coefficients is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:^{[7] [8]}

• Associations 1–6 each have three teams qualify.
• Associations 7–16 each have two teams qualify.
• All other associations, if they entered, each have one team qualify.
• The winners of the 2020–21 UEFA Women's Champions League are given an additional entry if they do not qualify for the 2021–22 UEFA Women's Champions League through their domestic league. However, the title holders have qualified through their domestic league, meaning the additional entry is not necessary for this season.

An association must have an eleven-a-side women's domestic league to enter a team. As of 2019–20, 52 of the 55 UEFA member associations organize a women's domestic league, with the exceptions being Andorra, Liechtenstein and San Marino.

Association ranking

For the 2021–22 UEFA Women's Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2020 UEFA women's Association coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2015–16 to 2019–20.^[9]

Association ranking for 2021–22 UEFA Women's Champions League

Rank Association Coeff. Teams 1 96.000 align=center rowspan=6 3 2 73.000 3 58.000 4 56.500 5 45.500 6 40.500 7 34.500 align=center rowspan=10 2 8 33.000 9 30.500 10 29.000 11 27.500 12 26.000 13 24.000 14 23.000 15 22.500 16 19.000 17 16.000 align=center rowspan=3 1 18 15.500 19 15.000

Rank Association Coeff. Teams 20 14.500 align=center rowspan=18 1 21 14.500 22 12.500 23 12.000 24 12.000 25 11.000 26 10.500 27 10.000 28 9.500 29 9.000 30 7.500 31 7.500 32 7.000 33 7.000 34 6.000 35 5.000 36 4.500 37 4.500

Rank Association Coeff. Teams 38 4.000 align=center rowspan=13 1 39 4.000 40 3.500 41 3.000 42 2.500 43 2.000 44 1.000 45 1.000 46 0.500 47 0.000 48 0.000 49 0.000 50 0.000 — align=center rowspan=2 — — align=center rowspan=3 — —

Notes

• NR – No rank (association did not enter in any of the seasons used for computing coefficients)
• DNE – Did not enter
• NL – No women's domestic league

Distribution

Unlike the men's Champions League, not every association entered a team, and so the exact number of teams entering in each round could not be determined until the full entry list was known. If there were more than 47 teams in the Champions Path qualifying, a preliminary round of two-legged home-and-away matches would have been played by the champions from the lowest-ranked associations. For example, if the title holders had not qualified for the group stage through league position and all 52 associations with a women's domestic league entered, the champions from associations 49–52 would enter the preliminary round.^[10] However, only 50 associations entered and this round was skipped.

The following is the access list for this season.^[11] As the Champions League title holders, Barcelona, which were guaranteed a berth in the Champions League group stage, already qualified via their domestic league, the following changes to the access list were made:

• The champions of association 4 (England) entered the group stage instead of round 2.
• The champions of association 7 (Denmark) entered round 2 instead of round 1.
• The champions of association 49 (Luxembourg) and 50 (Armenia) entered round 1 instead of the preliminary round, which was skipped.

Access list for 2021–22 UEFA Women's Champions League!!Path!Teams entering in this round!Teams advancing from previous round

Round 1 (Mini-tournament)	Champions Path (43 teams)	43 champions from associations 8–50
	League Path (16 teams)	6 third-placed teams from associations 1–6 10 runners-up from associations 7–16
Round 2	Champions Path (14 teams)	3 champions from associations 5–7	11 winners of round 1 (Champions Path)
	League Path (10 teams)	6 runners-up from associations 1–6	4 winners of round 1 (League Path)
Group stage (16 teams)		4 champions from associations 1–4 (including title holders Barcelona)	7 winners of round 2 (Champions Path) 5 winners of round 2 (League Path)
Knockout phase (8 teams)			4 group winners of group stage 4 group runners-up of group stage

Teams

The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:

• TH: Title holders
• 1st, 2nd, 3rd: League positions of the previous season
• Abd-: League positions of abandoned season due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe as determined by the national association; all teams are subject to approval by UEFA as per the guidelines for entry to European competitions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic^[12]

The two qualifying rounds, round 1 and round 2, are divided into Champions Path (CP) and League Path (LP).

CC: 2021 UEFA women's club coefficients.^[13]

Entry round! colspan="4"

Teams
Group stage		Barcelona^TH ^[14]	Paris Saint-Germain ^[15]	Bayern Munich ^[16]	Chelsea ^[17]
Round 2		BK Häcken ^[18]	Sparta Prague ^[19]	Køge ^[20]
				Real Madrid ^[21]
		Rosengård ^[22]
Round 1		Twente ^[23]	Juventus ^[24]	BIIK Kazygurt ^[25]	Vålerenga ^[26]
			Servette Chênois ^[27]	Glasgow City ^[28]	CSKA Moscow ^[29]
		Dinamo-BGU Minsk ^[30]	Apollon Limassol ^[31]	Spartak Subotica ^[32]	St. Pölten ^[33]
		Gintra Universitetas ^[34]	Czarni Sosnowiec ^[35]	Anderlecht ^[36]	Benfica ^[37]
		SFK 2000 ^[38]	Olimpia Cluj ^[39]	Åland United ^[40]	Zhytlobud-1 Kharkiv ^[41]
		PAOK ^[42]	Ferencváros ^[43]	Beşiktaş ^[44]	Peamount United ^[45]
		Vllaznia ^[46]	Osijek ^[47]	Pomurje ^[48]	Kiryat Gat ^[49]
		Flora ^[50]	NSA Sofia ^[51]	Mitrovica ^[52]
		Swansea City ^[53]	Breznica Pljevlja ^[54]	KÍ ^[55]	Glentoran ^[56]
			Rīgas FS ^[57]	Agarista Anenii Noi ^[58]	Kamenica Sasa ^[59]
		Tbilisi Nike ^[60]	Racing FC ^[61]	Hayasa ^[62]
		Bordeaux ^[63]
			Slovácko ^[64]		PSV ^[65]
		Milan ^[66]
					FC Minsk ^[67]

Notes

Schedule

The schedule of the competition was as follows.^[7]

^[68]

Phase	Round	Draw date	First leg	Second leg
Qualifying	First round	2 July 2021	17–18 August 2021 (semi-finals)	20–21 August 2021 (third-place play-off & final)
	Second round	22 August 2021	31 August – 1 September 2021	8–9 September 2021
Group stage	Matchday 1	13 September 2021	5–6 October 2021
	Matchday 2		13–14 October 2021
	Matchday 3		9–10 November 2021
	Matchday 4		17–18 November 2021
	Matchday 5		8–9 December 2021
	Matchday 6		15–16 December 2021
Knockout phase	Quarter-finals	20 December 2021	22–23 March 2022	30–31 March 2022
	Semi-finals		23–24 April 2022	30 April – 1 May 2022
	Final		21 May 2022 at Juventus Stadium, Turin

Qualifying rounds

See main article: 2021–22 UEFA Women's Champions League qualifying rounds. A preliminary round consisting of two-legged home-and-away matches would have been played by the champions from the lowest-ranked associations if more than 50 associations had entered the tournament and the title holders had not qualified through league position. Since only 50 associations entered, this round was skipped.^[7]

Round 1

Champions Path

Tournament 1

Tournament 2

Tournament 3

Tournament 4

Tournament 5

Tournament 6

Tournament 7

Tournament 8

Tournament 9

Tournament 10

Tournament 11

League Path

Tournament 1

Tournament 2

Tournament 3

Tournament 4

Round 2

Group stage

See main article: 2021–22 UEFA Women's Champions League group stage.

The draw for the group stage was held on 13 September 2021, 13:00 CEST, in Nyon.^{[69] [70]} The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots, each of four teams, based on the following principles:

• Pot 1 contained the four direct entrants, i.e., the Champions League holders and the champions of the top three associations based on their 2020 UEFA women's country coefficients.^[9]
• Pot 2, 3 and 4 contained the remaining teams, seeded based on their 2021 UEFA women's club coefficients.^[13]

Teams from the same association could not be drawn into the same group. Prior to the draw, UEFA formed one pairing of teams for associations with two or three teams based on television audiences, where one team was drawn into Groups A–B and another team into Groups C–D, so that the two teams played on different days. Clubs from countries with severe winter conditions (Sweden, Iceland) were assigned a position in their group which allowed them to play away on matchday 6.^[71]

The matches were played on 5–6 October, 13–14 October, 9–10 November, 17–18 November, 8–9 December, and 15–16 December 2021. The top two teams of each group advanced to the quarter-finals.

Køge, 1899 Hoffenheim and Real Madrid played in a European competition for the first time this season.

Group D

Knockout phase

See main article: 2021–22 UEFA Women's 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:

• In the draw for the quarter-finals, the four group winners were seeded, and the four group runners-up were unseeded. The seeded teams were drawn against the unseeded teams, with the seeded teams hosting the second leg. Teams from the same group could not be drawn against each other.
• A draw was also held to determine which semi-final winner was designated as the "home" team for the final (for administrative purposes as it was played at a neutral venue).

Final

Statistics

Statistics exclude qualifying rounds and play-off round.

Top goalscorers

Rank	Player	Team	Goals^[72]
1	Alexia Putellas	Barcelona	11
2	Tabea Waßmuth	VfL Wolfsburg	10
3	Catarina Macario	Lyon	8
4	Marie-Antoinette Katoto	Paris Saint-Germain	7
5	Ada Hegerberg	Lyon	6
	Jordyn Huitema	Paris Saint-Germain
7	Cristiana Girelli	Juventus	5
	Jennifer Hermoso	Barcelona
	Jill Roord	VfL Wolfsburg
10	Ramona Bachmann	Paris Saint-Germain	4
	Aitana Bonmatí	Barcelona
	Sam Kerr	Chelsea
	Lea Schüller	Bayern Munich

Team of the season

The UEFA technical study group selected the following players as the team of the tournament.^[73]

	Player	Team
	Christiane Endler	Lyon
	Griedge Mbock Bathy	Lyon
	Wendie Renard	Lyon
	Mapi León	Barcelona
	Selma Bacha	Lyon
	Aitana Bonmatí	Barcelona
	Patricia Guijarro	Barcelona
	Amandine Henry	Lyon
	Alexia Putellas	Barcelona
	Ada Hegerberg	Lyon
	Marie-Antoinette Katoto	Paris Saint-Germain

Player of the season

• Alexia Putellas (Barcelona)^[1]

Young player of the season

• Selma Bacha (Lyon)^[74]

See also

• 2021–22 UEFA Champions League

External links

• • Women's Domestic Leagues, UEFA.com

Notes and References

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8. Web site: Regulations of the UEFA Women's Champions League, 2021/22 Season . UEFA . 2021 . 30 April 2021.
9. Web site: Women's association club coefficients 2019/20 . UEFA . 24 September 2020 . 24 September 2020.
10. Web site: Access List for the UEFA Women's Champions League 2021/22 (based on 52 entries). UEFA .
11. Web site: Final access List for the UEFA Women's Champions League 2021/22. UEFA .
12. Web site: Guidelines on eligibility principles for 2020/21 UEFA Club Competitions – COVID 19. UEFA . 23 April 2020.
13. Web site: Women's club coefficients 2020/21. UEFA .
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