The idea of a European Cup was realised in 1955-56, when
twelve teams were selected by the French football magazine L’Equipe on the basis of prestige;
this continued for five seasons until a formal qualification was devised.
Real Madrid won.
Chelsea, who would win their only Champions League in 2012, were denied entry by the FA,
while Saarbrucken, now in the third tier of German football, represented Saarland, a country
that no longer exists.
It was annexed into Germany in 1957.
Real Madrid dominated those early years, as they have gone on to dominate other eras.
They’re the most successful side with 13 titles; AC Milan are next, with seven.
The most successful side in the tournament to have never won are Atletico Madrid – they’ve
finished runners-up three times, once more than Reims and Valencia, most recently in
2016.
Four teams have won two European Cups or Champions Leagues in a row: Benfica (1961, 1962), Liverpool
(1977, 1978), Nottingham Forest (1979, 1980), and AC Milan (1989, 1990).
Forest are the only European Cup winners to have won their domestic top tier just the
once.
Forest also have another distinction, shared with Porto: they’re the only two teams to
have appeared in two or more finals with a 100% win rate.
Meanwhile, Bayer Leverkusen are the only side to have contested a final, in 2002, without
ever having won their domestic title.
Three clubs have won more than two in a row.
Real Madrid famously took five between 1956 and 1960, completing another hat-trick from
2016 to 2018.
And Bayern won three in a row between 1974 and 1976, while Ajax collected three between
1971 and 1973.
The biggest gap between titles is 32 years, between Real’s triumphs in ’66 and ’98.
With Real doing so well, and Barcelona lifting five titles of their own, it’s not a surprise
to see Spain are top of the country rankings, with 18 titles in all.
England are next with 13, and they also have the most different teams with five (Liverpool,
United, Forest, Villa, Chelsea).
In the Champions League era, Spain and Germany have had the greatest number of different
teams qualify, with 13 each.
While many of the sides are obvious, since the new format was introduced in 1992 Spain
have seen less likely qualifiers like Celta Vigo, Real Betis, and Malaga, while Germany
have provided Kaiserslautern, Hertha, and Stuttgart.
While Italian teams have the best semi-final record of any nation, with 28 wins from 37
appearances, Juventus have the worst finals record of any club side: they’ve been in
nine finals and only won two of them, in 1985 and 1996.
Three Juventus players, Gianluigi Buffon, Paolo Montero, and Alessio Tacchinardi, have
played in three finals and lost them all.
With so much Spanish involvement in the competition, the leading appearance makers are most from
those sides.
Iker Casillas leads the way with 177 in a decade of senior competition, followed by
Cristiano Ronaldo, one behind.
Ryan Giggs has the highest tally while representing a Premier League side, with 145, fifth in
the all-time list.
Meanwhile, Paco Gento is the only player to have won the competition six times, each time
with Real Madrid, five during that run of consecutive wins.
Ronaldo is also the highest scorer in the competition’s history with a staggering
134 goals; Lionel Messi is second with 120 in 149 appearances, and Robert Lewandowski,
Karim Benzema, and Thomas Muller are the other active players in the top eleven.
Ronaldo has top scored for seven seasons, six of them consecutively, but only Gerd Muller
of Bayern and West Germany has top scored in the European Cup, the World Cup, and the
European Championship: he was the top scorer in four European Cup campaigns, at the World
Cup in 1970, and Euro 1972.
For longevity, look no further than Messi and Benzema, who have scored in 16 consecutive
Champions League seasons, one more than Ronaldo.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, meanwhile, is the only player to have scored for six different clubs
[Ajax, Juventus, Inter Milan, Barcelona, AC Milan, PSG].
The fastest Champions League goal ever was scored by Roy Makaay, who scored after 10.12
seconds for Bayern Munich against Real Madrid in March 2007, while the fastest in a final
was scored by Paulo Maldini against Liverpool in 2005, after 53 seconds.
And this season, Vinicius Junior became the substitute to score soonest after coming on,
netting 14 seconds after his introduction against Shaktar in the group stages.
This season also saw Erling Braut Haaland break a record, the youngest player to 20
Champions League goals, surpassing Harry Kane.
From scorers to providers, Ronaldo again dominates, with the most assists in the competition (42),
ahead of Messi’s 36.
The most assists in a single season, though, belongs to James Milner with nine in 2017/18
for Liverpool.
And while Iker Casillas holds a number of goal-keeping records, including the most clean
sheets overall with 59, including two qualifying games, the longest sequence of consecutive
clean-sheets belongs to Jen Lehmann, who kept ten in a row for Arsenal across the 2005/06
and 2006/07 seasons; he’s also only one of three players to have been sent off in
a final, the other two being Didier Drogba
and Juan Cuadrado.