UEFA Champions League: 50 Things You Didn't Know About Top Club Tournament

The Champions League final is approaching fast—May 19—if you weren't already aware, and there are some tasty looking semifinal matches on show prior to that.

Bayern Munich and Real Madrid will battle it out in one showdown, whilst Chelsea will have to overcome reigning cup holders Barcelona if they want to please owner Roman Abramovich.

With a lot to play for, here's UEFA Champions League: 50 Things You Didn't Know About Top Club Tournament.

Origins

The Champions League began in 1955 and was originally known as the European Champion Club's Cup or European Cup.

History.

Viewers

Think the Superbowl get's plenty of viewers?

The Champions League final is the most watched sporting event worldwide and attracts over 178 million viewers a year.

Numbers.

First Winners

The first winners of the competition were Real Madrid in 1956, and they went on to win the competition five times in a row.

Originals.

Most Successful

Real Madrid are also the most successful club in the history of the competition having won it an impressive nine times.

Frequent.

Current Champions

Barcelona are the current holders of the Champions League trophy having beaten Manchester United 3-1 in the 2011 final.

Reigning.

Difficulty

Think the Champions League is easy to win?

Since its change in structure in 1992, no club has won the Champions League consecutively.

Tough.

History

Prior to the rule change in 1992, AC Milan were the last club to successfully defend their title in 1990.

Old school.

Music

The Champions League music is called "Champions League" and was written by Tony Britten.

Anthem.

Tournament

The tournament consists of 32 teams divided into eight groups of four. 

No two teams from the same nation can be in the same group, and the top two teams from each group progress to the next round.

Group stages. 

Tournament II

If you pass the group stage test then a sterner team awaits.

Those teams that finished top of their groups face a second placed team from another group—again they cannot be from the same nation.

Tester.

Tournament III

Make it this far and you're in the quarterfinals.

At this point the tournament draw becomes entirely random with teams settling their abilities over the best of two legs.

Away goals rule applies.

Difficult.

Tournament IV

Semifinals are the same format as the quarterfinals, except with tougher opposition and more pressure.

This is the round where teams begin to think they can win the competition.

Nervous.

Tournament V

Get past the semifinals and you can see the finish line.

One 90-minute game of football should settle the score, with extra time and penalties available should the scores still be even.

The final is fair game to whichever team wants it most.

Committed.

Referees

Referees are appointed based on previous performances as well as their fitness levels.

No referee can be appointed to a match which features a team from the referees home nationality, nor can they be over 45 years of age.

Un-biased.

Money

Win the tournament and UEFA will award you €9 million, finish as a runner-up and you get €5.6 million.

Champions League money is big business, with quarterfinals and semifinals paying €3.3 and €4.2 million respectively.

Money-maker.

Sponsors

The Champions League enjoys some heavy sponsorship including Heineken, Ford, Sony Ericsson, Mastercard, Sony and Adidas.

Ker-ching.

Unlucky

For every winner, there's a losing finalist.

The most unfortunate of the bunch are Juventus and Benfica who have both lost five finals each over the years.

Harsh.

Nationality

Spain have had the most success in Champions League history with 13 wins and nine runner-up performances.

Italy are close behind with a 12 and 14 record.

Enforcers.

Unbeaten

Quite a few clubs have won the Champions League by going through the whole tournament undefeated.

Ajax, Liverpool, AC Milan and Manchester United are the only teams to have done it twice.

Extra-special.

Finals Record

Anybody could make the final once and win it, but who has made the final on more than one occasion and won it every time?

Nottingham Forest and FC Porto are the only two teams with a 100 percent final success rate based on more than one final.

Best Losers

Obviously there are plenty of clubs that have made the final and lost, but there are some more unfortunate teams that have lost more than one final.

Stade de Reims and Valencia have both made the final twice and lost twice.

Odds.

Biggest Two-Leg Wins

Benfica beat Stade Dudelange 18-0 over two legs back in the 1965/66 season.

The Portuguese outfit won 8-0 and 10-0 respectively, and the result remains the highest scoring two-legged game to date.

Most Goals

Feyenoord defeated KR Reykjavik 12-2 in the first round of the 1969/70 Champions League—the highest scoring game to date.

Goals.

Greatest Final

Liverpool's come back from 3-0 down at half time to draw 3-3 with AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League final is probably the greatest final that has ever been witnessed in the competition—at least for drama's sake.

Mesmerising.

Clean Sheets

Arsenal hold the record for consecutive clean sheets with 10 from the 2005/06 season.

955 footballing minutes passed between September 2005 and May 2006 when the record occurred.

Solid.

Most Goals in the Groups

Manchester United and Barcelona share the record for the most goals in the group stages with 20 apiece.

United struck 20 in the 1998/99 season, with Barcelona matching them in the 2011/12 season.

Prolific.

Consecutive Goals

Barcelona hold the record for scoring in consecutive Champions League matches when they managed 29 on the bounce against Bayer Leverkusen in March 2012.

The prior record was held by Bayern Munich who had managed 22 in a row in the 1999-2000 season.

Scoring for fun.

Consecutive Wins

Barcelona also hold the Champions League record for consecutive wins with nine in the 2002/03 season.

Consistency.

Appearances

Raul is the current Champions League record holder for appearances with 144.

Close behind him are Ryan Giggs and Paolo Maldini on 139.

Raul started his run in 1995.

Oldie.

Goalscoring

Raul also leads the goalscoring record charts for an individual in the Champions League.

Raul has 71 strikes to date, ahead of Ruud Van Nistelrooy on 62 and Andriy Shevchenko on 58.

Poacher.

Goals in a Game

There are a number of players who have scored five goals in a European Cup match, but Lionel Messi is the first player to manage the feat since the Champions League era began.

Messi scored his five in a 7-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen in the 2011/12 season.

Oldest Goalscorer

Ryan Giggs is the oldest goalscorer in Champions League history after he notched against Benfica in September 2011.

He was aged 37 years and 289 days.

Geriatric.

Youngest Goalscorer

17 years and 194 days is the age to beat if you want the youngest goalscoring title to be yours.

Peter Ofori-Quaye of Olympiacos set the record against Rosenborg in 1997.

Baby-faced assassin.

Managerial Legends

Bob Paisley is the only manager to win three European Cups—or Champions Leagues if you prefer.

The Liverpool legend won his titles in 1977, 1978 and 1981.

Alex Ferguson is hot on his heels with two victories and two runner-up results to date.

Legends.

Red Cards

Patrick Vieira, Edgar Davids and Didier Drogba share the record for most red cards in Champions League history after receiving their marching orders three times apiece.

Out of control.

Yellow Cards

Paul Scholes of Manchester United holds the current record for most yellow cards in Champions League history with 32.

Warning.

Management II

Jose Mourinho was the first manager to reach the semifinals of the Champions League with four different teams after Real Madrid made it in 2011.

The other teams he coached were FC Porto in 2004, Chelsea in 2005 and 2007, and Inter Milan in 2010.

Consistent.

Goalkeeping

Jens Lehmann holds the record for most consecutive clean sheets with 10 for Arsenal. He achieved this by playing 853 minutes of football.

Shut-out.

Oldest Player

Marco Ballotta of Lazio is the oldest player to ever appear in the competition when he trotted onto the pitch in 2007 aged 43 years and 252 days.

Zimmer frame.

Location Location Location

The 2012 Champions League Cup final will take place at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany on May 19.

The Allianz Arena is the home of Bayern Munich who are still in the competition.

Odds

Barcelona are the bookmakers favourites to win the competition at 5/6, Real Madrid are second at 5/2, Bayern Munich third at 5/1 and Chelsea fourth at 8/1.

All odds courtesy of Williamhill.com.

Outright.

Goalscoring

Lionel Messi is also Williamhill's favourite for the tournament golden boot with odds of 1/16.

Mario Gomez—8/1, and Cristiano Ronaldo—25/1, have almost no chance of catching the Argentinean.

Uncatchable.

Pedigreee

Out of the four teams remaining in the competition, the trophy has been won an incredible 17 times.

Only Chelsea have yet to win it.

Outsiders.

Capacity

Bayern Munich's Allianz Arena holds an incredible 69,901 people at capacity and cost €340 million to build.

The stadium's colour can be altered to show the public which teams are playing there on a match day.

Cities

Want to know which city has the most successful Champions League club teams?

Milan has had 10 winners and nine runners-up, closely followed by Madrid with nine winners and four runners-up.

Liverpool are third with five winners and two runners-up.

Insular.

Consecutive Finals

Another record held by Real Madrid is that of reaching consecutive finals.

Los Blancos made the first five finals in a row from 1956-60.

Milan and Juventus have made three each in the modern Champions League era.

Mixing It Up

On only three occasions has the cup final been contested between teams of the same nation.

In 2000, Real Madrid beat Valencia 3-0.

In 2003, AC Milan beat Juventus on penalties 3-2 after a 0-0 draw.

In 2008, Manchester United beat Chelsea 6-5 on penalties after a 1-1 draw..

Keeping everybody guessing.

Cities II

Milan, Italy is the only city in the world that has won the competition with two separate teams—Internazionale and AC Milan respectively.

Rule Change

Liverpool were the first team to invoke a rule change from UEFA after they won the competition in 2005, but failed to qualify for the 2006 campaign.

UEFA changed the rules to allow clubs to defend their title.

Rule benders.

Golden Boot

Only one player has won the Champions League golden boot in four tournaments.

Gerd Muller of Bayern Munich earned his plaudits in 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1977.

Lionel Messi could tie that record if he wins it this year.

Afterthoughts

Thank you to Wikipedia.com and UEFA.com for all the statistics you see on this slideshow.

Please check out my Euro 2012 previews for Ukraine, Netherlands, Greece and Portugal.

On Twitter? Follow me @petercwebster where I post all my B/R content.