2007–08 UEFA Champions League explained

Tourney Name:UEFA Champions League
Year:2007–08
Size:300px
Dates:Qualifying:
17 July – 29 August 2007
Competition proper:
18 September 2007 – 21 May 2008
Num Teams:Competition proper: 32
Total: 76
Champion Other: Manchester United
Count:3
Second Other: Chelsea
Matches:125
Goals:330
Attendance:5380947
Top Scorer:Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United)
8 goals
Prevseason:2006–07
Nextseason:2008–09

The 2007–08 UEFA Champions League was the 16th season of UEFA's premier European club football tournament, the UEFA Champions League, since it was rebranded in 1992, and the 53rd tournament overall.

The final was played on 21 May 2008 at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia, where Manchester United played against Chelsea, making it an all-English final for the first time in the history of the European Cup. Manchester United won the match 6–5 on penalties, following a 1–1 draw after extra time.

Milan were the defending champions, but were eliminated by Arsenal in the first knockout round.

Qualification

76 teams participated in the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League from 52 UEFA member associations (not including Liechtenstein). Each association enters a certain number of clubs to the Champions League based on its league coefficient which takes into account the performance of its clubs in European competitions from 2001–02 to 2005–06.;[1] associations with a higher league coefficients may enter more clubs than associations with a lower league coefficient, but no association may enter more than four teams. All UEFA associations are guaranteed to have at least one team qualify, with the exception of Liechtenstein, which competes in the Swiss league system, but has no team in the Swiss Super League. One new nation entered their league champion in this year's tournament: Montenegro, following the dissolution of Serbia and Montenegro. The champions from San Marino and Andorra also entered from this year onwards. Below is the qualification scheme for the 2007–08 Champions League:[2]

Association ranking

For the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2006 UEFA country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2001–02 to 2005–06.[3]

RankAssociationCoeff.Teams
172.748align=center rowspan=34
266.731
363.486
450.781align=center rowspan=33
548.364
644.041
741.331align=center rowspan=92
832.081
931.833
1031.457
1130.375
1230.250
1326.600
1426.575
1526.166
1625.875align=center rowspan=31
1724.290
1821.541
RankAssociationCoeff.Teams
1920.975align=center rowspan=181
2020.375
2119.999
2218.500
2316.950
2414.665
2514.083
2613.249
2712.332
2810.165
2910.165
308.165
317.373
327.164
336.832
346.331
355.832
365.331
RankAssociationCoeff.Teams
374.832align=center rowspan=11
384.5000
394.415align=center rowspan=151
404.331
413.665
422.998
432.665
442.665
452.332
462.332
471.999
481.832
491.666
501.665
510.000
520.000
530.000

Distribution

Since the title holders (Milan) qualified for the Champions League third qualifying round through their domestic league and entered the group stage automatically, their spot in the third qualifying round is vacated, and the following changes to the default access list are made:[4]

Teams entering in this roundTeams advancing from previous round
First qualifying round
(28 teams)
  • 28 champions from associations 25–53 (except Liechtenstein)
Second qualifying round
(28 teams)
  • 8 champions from associations 17–24
  • 6 runners-up from associations 10–15
  • 14 winners from the first qualifying round
Third qualifying round
(32 teams)
  • 7 champions from associations 10–16
  • 3 runners-up from associations 7–9
  • 6 third-place finishers from associations 1–6
  • 2 fourth-place finishers from associations 1–3 (except title holders Milan)
  • 14 winners from the second qualifying round
Group stage
(32 teams)
  • 1 current Champions League holder
  • 9 champions from associations 1–9
  • 6 runners-up from associations 1–6
  • 16 winners from the third qualifying round
Knockout phase
(16 teams)
  • 8 group winners from the group stage
  • 8 group runners-up from the group stage

Teams

Group stage
Real Madrid (1st) Manchester United (1st) VfB Stuttgart (1st) PSV Eindhoven (1st)
Barcelona (2nd) Chelsea (2nd) Schalke 04 (2nd) Olympiacos (1st)
Internazionale (1st) Lyon (1st) Porto (1st) CSKA Moscow (1st)
Roma (2nd) Marseille (2nd) Sporting CP (2nd) MilanTH(4th)
Third qualifying round
Sevilla (3rd) Toulouse (3rd) Spartak Moscow (2nd) Dynamo Kyiv (1st)
Valencia (4th) Werder Bremen (3rd) Dinamo București (1st) Sparta Prague (1st)
Lazio (3rd) Benfica (3rd) Celtic (1st) Fenerbahçe (1st)
Liverpool (3rd) Ajax (PO) Anderlecht (1st) Zürich (1st)
Arsenal (4th) AEK Athens (2nd)
Second qualifying round
Steaua București (2nd) Slavia Prague (2nd) Rosenborg (1st) Zagłębie Lubin (1st)
Rangers (2nd) Beşiktaş (2nd) Red Bull Salzburg (1st) Copenhagen (1st)
Genk (2nd) Levski Sofia (1st) Red Star Belgrade (1st) Debrecen (1st)
Shakhtar Donetsk (2nd) Beitar Jerusalem (1st)
First qualifying round
Dinamo Zagreb (1st) Ventspils (1st) Derry City (2nd) Khazar Lenkoran (1st)
Elfsborg (1st) Sheriff Tiraspol (1st) KF Tirana (1st) F91 Dudelange (1st)
Žilina (1st) Olimpi Rustavi (1st) Pyunik (1st) Astana (1st)
APOEL (1st) FBK Kaunas (1st) Levadia Tallinn (1st) HB (1st)
Domžale (1st) Pobeda (1st) Marsaxlokk (1st) Rànger's (1st)
Sarajevo (1st) FH (1st) The New Saints (1st) Murata (1st)
Tampere United (1st) BATE Borisov (1st) Linfield (1st) Zeta (1st)
Notes

Round and draw dates

The calendar shows the dates of the rounds and draw.

PhaseRoundDraw dateFirst legSecond leg
QualifyingFirst qualifying round29 June 200717–18 July 200724–25 July 2007
Second qualifying round31 July–1 August 20077–8 August 2007
Third qualifying round3 August 200714–15 August 200728–29 August 2007
Group stageMatchday 130 August 200718–19 September 2007
Matchday 22–3 October 2007
Matchday 323–24 October 2007
Matchday 46–7 November 2007
Matchday 527–28 November 2007
Matchday 611–12 December 20071
Knockout phaseRound of 1621 December 200719–20 February 20084–11 March 20082
Quarter-finals14 March 20081–2 April 20088–9 April 2008
Semi-finals22–23 April 200829–30 April 2008
Final21 May 2008 at Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow

1 Group D teams played their Matchday 6 fixtures on 4 December due to Milan's participation in the 2007 FIFA Club World Cup in Japan on 13 and 16 December.

2 As both Milan and Internazionale use the San Siro as their home pitch, and both teams were seeded and scheduled to host the second leg of the first knockout round at home, Internazionale's home leg against Liverpool was postponed by one week to 11 March 2008 to accommodate Milan, who were the title holders.

Qualifying rounds

See main article: 2007–08 UEFA Champions League qualifying rounds.

Third qualifying round

Group stage

See main article: 2007–08 UEFA Champions League group stage.

The draw was held on Thursday, 30 August 2007 at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The draw was hosted by Pedro Pinto and conducted by UEFA General Secretary David Taylor and Michele Centenaro, UEFA's head of club competitions. The matches were played between 18 September and 12 December 2007.

The top two teams in each group advanced to the knockout stage, and the third-placed teams entered the round of 32 of the UEFA Cup. Based on paragraph 6.05 in the UEFA regulations for the current season, if two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied to determine the rankings:

  1. higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question;
  2. superior goal difference from the group matches played among the teams in question;
  3. higher number of goals scored away from home in the group matches played among the teams in question;
  4. superior goal difference from all group matches played;
  5. higher number of goals scored in all group matches played;
  6. higher number of coefficient points accumulated by the club in question, as well as its association, over the previous five seasons.

Sevilla and Slavia Prague made their debut appearance in the group stage.[5]

Group H

Knockout phase

See main article: 2007–08 UEFA Champions League knockout stage.

In the knockout stage, 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:

Final

Statistics

Statistics exclude qualifying rounds.

Top goalscorers

RankPlayerTeamGoalsMinutes played
1 Cristiano Ronaldo Manchester United81,062
2 Lionel Messi Barcelona6755
Fernando Torres Liverpool905
Didier Drogba Chelsea1,071
Steven Gerrard Liverpool1,144
6 Ryan Babel Liverpool5619
Zlatan Ibrahimović Internazionale625
Frédéric Kanouté Sevilla714
Raúl Real Madrid715
Deivid Fenerbahçe844
Dirk Kuyt Liverpool892
Source: UEFA Champions League Press Release - Top Scorers - Final - Wednesday 21 May 2008 (after match)

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Country coefficients 2005/06. UEFA.
  2. Web site: The access list from UEFA European Cup Football . 20 June 2007 . Bert . Kassies . February 2007 . UEFA European Cup Football . https://web.archive.org/web/20070607184714/http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/access2007.html . 7 June 2007 . live.
  3. Web site: UEFA Country Ranking 2007. Bert Kassies.
  4. Web site: 2007/08 UEFA Champions League access list . UEFA . 17 August 2007 .
  5. Web site: Excitement builds as draw nears . UEFA . 30 August 2007 .