2019–20 UEFA Champions League


The 2019–20 UEFA Champions League is the 65th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 28th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League.
The final will be played at the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon, Portugal. The winners of the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League will earn the right to play against the winners of the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League in the 2020 UEFA Super Cup; they will also qualify for the 2020 FIFA Club World Cup in Qatar. They will also automatically qualify for the 2020–21 UEFA Champions League group stage, and if they have already qualified through their league performance, the reserved berth will be given to the team that was top of the 2019–20 Eredivisie when it was suspended due to COVID-19.
The video assistant referee system has been used in the competition from the play-off round onwards.
Liverpool were the defending champions. Both of the previous season's finalists, Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool were eliminated in the round of 16, after losing to RB Leipzig and Atlético Madrid respectively, and Liverpool will be unable to defend their title.

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic

The round of 16 ties were to be played across four weeks, with the first legs being played across two weeks in February and the second legs across two weeks in March. Because of this, the first leg ties were unaffected by the pandemic, but the second leg ties were affected in different ways. All of the four matches in the first week of fixtures went ahead but due to the increased severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain and France, Valencia's and PSG's home games were played behind closed doors. On 15 March, UEFA announced a halt to the competition meaning that the remaining second leg games would be postponed indefinitely. A taskforce was convened to reschedule the rest of the season. On 23 March, it was announced that the Atatürk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey would no longer host the competition final, originally scheduled for 30 May, but would host the 2021 final instead.
On 17 June, it was announced that the Champions League would return on 7 August and conclude on 23 August, with the rest of the tournament to be held in Portugal, with the exception of the four unplayed round of 16 second legs, which will be played at their original venues. The last 8 of the competition would be played as a mini-tournament style with remaining fixtures to be played as single legged ties. All remaining ties of the competition will be played behind closed doors due to the remaining presence of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe.

Final tournament venues

Lisbon
Lisbon
Estádio da Luz

Estádio José Alvalade
Capacity: 64,642
Capacity: 50,095

Association team allocation

A total of 79 teams from 54 of the 55 UEFA member associations participate in the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League. The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:
For the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2018 UEFA country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2013–14 to 2017–18.
Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations may have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below:
The following is the access list for this season.
Changes are made to the default access list, if the Champions League and/or Europa League title holders qualify for the tournament via their domestic leagues. In any case where a spot in the Champions League is vacated, teams of the highest-ranked associations in earlier rounds of the appropriate path are promoted accordingly.
League positions of the previous season shown in parentheses.

LiverpoolTH Tottenham Hotspur RB Leipzig Benfica
ChelseaEL Juventus Bayer Leverkusen Shakhtar Donetsk
Barcelona Napoli Paris Saint-Germain Genk
Atlético Madrid Atalanta Lille Galatasaray
Real Madrid Inter Milan Lyon Red Bull Salzburg
Valencia Bayern Munich Zenit Saint Petersburg
Manchester City Borussia Dortmund Lokomotiv Moscow

CFR Cluj Astana Shkëndija Saburtalo Tbilisi
Piast Gliwice Rosenborg HJK Ararat-Armenia
AIK Maribor Dundalk Valletta
Qarabağ Slovan Bratislava Sarajevo F91 Dudelange
Ludogorets Razgrad Sheriff Tiraspol Riga Linfield
Red Star Belgrade Partizani Nõmme Kalju The New Saints
Celtic Valur Sūduva HB Tórshavn
BATE Borisov Ferencváros Sutjeska Nikšić

Round and draw dates

The schedule of the competition is as follows.
The competition was suspended on 17 March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. A working group was set up by UEFA to decide the calendar of the remainder of the season. On 17 June 2020, UEFA announced the revised schedule for the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final of the competition, to be played in single-leg matches.

Preliminary round

In the preliminary round, teams were divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their 2019 UEFA club coefficients, and then drawn into one-legged semi-final and final ties. The losers of both semi-final and final rounds entered the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League second qualifying round.

Qualifying rounds

In the qualifying rounds and the play-off round, teams were divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their 2019 UEFA club coefficients, and then drawn into two-legged home-and-away ties.

First qualifying round

The losers entered the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League second qualifying round, except one team who was drawn to receive a bye to the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League third qualifying round.

Second qualifying round

The second qualifying round was split into two separate sections: Champions Path and League Path. The losers from both Champions Path and League Path entered the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League third qualifying round.

Third qualifying round

The third qualifying round was split into two separate sections: Champions Path and League Path. The losers from the Champions Path entered the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League play-off round, while the losers from the League Path entered the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League group stage.

Play-off round

The play-off round was split into two separate sections: Champions Path and League Path. The losers from both Champions Path and League Path entered the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League group stage. From this stage, the video assistant referee will be used.

Group stage

The draw for the group stage was held on 29 August 2019, 18:00 CEST, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association cannot be drawn against each other. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots based on the following principles:
In each group, teams play against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advance to the round of 16, while the third-placed teams enter the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League round of 32. The matchdays are 17–18 September, 1–2 October, 22–23 October, 5–6 November, 26–27 November, and 10–11 December 2019.
The youth teams of the clubs that qualify for the group stage also participate in the 2019–20 UEFA Youth League on the same matchdays, where they compete in the UEFA Champions League Path.
A total of 16 national associations are represented in the group stage. Atalanta made their debut appearance in the group stage.
Tiebreakers

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Knockout phase

In the knockout phase, teams play against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.

Bracket

Round of 16

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Statistics

Statistics exclude qualifying rounds and play-off round.
There have been 344 goals scored in 108 matches, for an average of goals per match.

Top goalscorers

Notes
Source:

Top assists

Notes
Source: