page_title: UEFA Champions League
section_title: Group stage and knockout phase
hierarchical_section_title: UEFA Champions League / Format / Group stage and knockout phase
caption_attribution_description: English: Free kick during Real Madrid CF-AC Milan, 2010–11 UEFA Champions League Italiano: Calcio di punizione durante Real Madrid-Milan, UEFA Champions League 2010-2011
context_page_description: The UEFA Champions League is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competition winners through a group and knockout format. It is one of the most prestigious football tournaments in the world and the most prestigious club competition in European football, played by the national league champions of their national associations.
  Introduced in 1955 as the European Champion Clubs' Cup, it was initially a straight knockout tournament open only to the champions of Europe's domestic leagues, with its winner reckoned as the European club champion. The competition took on its current name in 1992, adding a round-robin group stage and allowing multiple entrants from certain countries. It has since been expanded, and while most of Europe's national leagues can still only enter their champion, the strongest leagues now provide up to four teams.
context_section_description: The tournament proper begins with a group stage of 32 teams, divided into eight groups of four. Seeding is used whilst making the draw for this stage, whilst teams from the same nation may not be drawn into groups together. Each team plays six group stage games, meeting the other three teams in its group home and away in a round-robin format. The winning team and the runners-up from each group then progress to the next round. The third-placed team enters the UEFA Europa League.
  For the next stage – the last 16 – the winning team from one group plays against the runners-up from another group, and teams from the same association may not be drawn against each other. From the quarter-finals onwards, the draw is entirely random, without association protection. The tournament uses the away goals rule: if the aggregate score of the two games is tied, then the team who scored more goals at their opponent's stadium advances.
  The group stage is played from September to December, whilst the knock-out stage starts in February. The knock-out ties are played in a two-legged format, with the exception of the final. The final is typically held in the last two weeks of May, or in the early days of June, which has happened in three consecutive odd-numbered years since 2015.
caption: A.C. Milan’s Ronaldinho and Zlatan Ibrahimović surrounded by Real Madrid defenders during a Champions League group stage game in 2010
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