2006–07 UEFA Champions League

The 2006–07 UEFA Champions League was the 15th season of UEFA's premier European club football tournament, the UEFA Champions League, since it was rebranded from the European Cup, and the 52nd season overall. The final was contested by Milan and Liverpool on 23 May 2007. Beforehand, the match was billed as a repeat of the 2005 final, the only difference being that the 2007 final was to be played at the Olympic Stadium in Athens, Greece. Milan won the match 2–1 to claim their seventh European Cup, with both goals coming from Filippo Inzaghi. Dirk Kuyt scored for Liverpool.
Barcelona were the defending champions, but were eliminated by Liverpool in the first knockout round.

WWW uefa.com/uefachampionslea...

Association team allocation

A total of 73 teams from 49 UEFA member associations participated in the 2006–07 UEFA Champions League. Liechtenstein as well as the 2 lowest-ranked federations, Andorra and San Marino, did not participate. Montenegro, which did not become a UEFA member until January 2007 also did not take part. 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 2000–01 to 2004–05; 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. Italy's representatives were decided based on the revised table following the match-fixing scandal which saw Juventus relegated to Serie B after winning the league the previous season.

Associations 1–3 each have four teams qualify.
Associations 4–6 each have three teams qualify.
Associations 7–15 each have two teams qualify.
Associations 16–50 each have one team qualify.

Association ranking

For the 2006–07 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.

Distribution

Since the title holders qualified for the Champions League group stage through their domestic league, the group stage spot reserved for the title holders is vacated, and the following changes to the default access list are made:

The champions of association 10 are promoted from the third qualifying round to the group stage.
The champions of association 16 are promoted from the second qualifying round to the third qualifying round.
The champions of associations 26 and 27 are promoted from the first qualifying round to the second qualifying round.

	Teams entering in this round	Teams advancing from previous round
First qualifying round	22 champions from associations 28–50
Second qualifying round	11 champions from associations 17–27 6 runners-up from associations 10–15	11 winners from the first qualifying round
Third qualifying round	6 champions from associations 11–16 3 runners-up from associations 7–9 6 third-place finishers from associations 1–6 3 fourth-place finishers from associations 1–3	14 winners from the second qualifying round
Group stage	10 champions from associations 1–10 6 runners-up from associations 1–6	16 winners from the third qualifying round
Knockout phase		8 group winners from the group stage 8 group runners-up from the group stage

Teams

;Notes

Round and draw dates

The schedule of the competition is as follows.

Group stage

The draw for this round was held on 24 August 2006 in Monaco. The first matches were played on 12 September 2006, and the stage concluded on 6 December.
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 4.05 in the UEFA regulations, if two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied to determine the rankings:

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

Copenhagen and Levski Sofia both made their debut appearances in the group stage. Levski were the first Bulgarian club to appear in the Champions League group stage.

Knockout phase

All knockout rounds are two-legged, except for the final. In the event of aggregate scores being equal after normal time in the second leg, the winning team will be that which scored more goals on their away leg: if the scores in the two matches were identical, extra time is played. The away goals rule also applies if scores are equal at the end of extra time. If there are no goals scored in extra time, the tie is decided on a penalty shootout.
The final was played over just one match, with extra time in case of a draw after 90 minutes. If the teams were still level following extra time, a penalty shootout would have determined the winner.

Statistics

Statistics exclude qualifying rounds.