The 1997–98 UEFA Champions League was the 43rd season of the UEFA Champions League, UEFA's premier club football tournament, and the sixth since its re-branding from the "European Champion Clubs' Cup" or "European Cup". The tournament was won by Real Madrid, winning for the first time in 32 years, beating Juventus 1-0, who were playing in a third consecutive final. It started a run of three victories in five seasons for the Spanish club.
This season was the first to have six groups, instead of previous four, which meant that only two group runners-up qualified for the quarter-finals as opposed to all the second-placed teams. It was also the first to have two qualifying rounds instead of just one. After three years of entering the UEFA Cup, champions of smaller nations returned to the Champions League. For the first time, the runners-up of eight domestic leagues entered into the competition. With Borussia Dortmund being the title holders but finishing third in their domestic league the previous season, Germany became the first association to provide three teams to the premier European competition.
Borussia Dortmund, the defending champions, were eliminated in the semi-finals by eventual winners Real Madrid.
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Slovakia and the Republic of Macedonia all entered their champions for the first time, while the champion of Yugoslavia returned to this competition for the first time since 1991–92 season after the UN ban was lifted.
Association team allocation Number of teams per country as well as the starting round for each club and seeding were based on UEFA association coefficients. Associations ranked 1–8 each have two participants Associations ranked 9–48 each have one participant (except Liechtenstein and Albania)
Association ranking For the 1997–98 UEFA Champions League, the associations were allocated places according to their 1997 UEFA association coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 1992–93 to 1996–97.
Apart from the allocation based on the association coefficients, an association could have an additional team participating in the Champions League, as noted below: – Additional berth for UEFA Champions League title holders
+Association ranking for 1997–98 UEFA Champions LeagueRankAssociationCoeff.TeamsNotes160.7352246.532345.733443.949536.350634.800730.816825.000925.00011024.9501124.8661224.4001322.9501422.7501522.2491621.6661721.500RankAssociationCoeff.TeamsNotes1819.50011918.8002018.6502118.5002217.9982316.6652416.4162516.2492616.0002715.9992813.8322912.9983012.0823111.5003210.9993310.666347.333RankAssociationCoeff.TeamsNotes356.0001366.000375.332385.0000394.9991404.750414.666424.664434.331444.166453.666463.000472.6660481.8331490.0000500.000
Distribution Teams entering in this roundTeams advancing from previous roundFirst qualifying round(30 teams)30 champions from associations 17–48 (except Liechtenstein and Albania)Second qualifying round(32 teams)9 champions from associations 8–16 8 runners-up from associations 1–815 winners from the first qualifying roundGroup stage(24 teams)Champions League title holders (Borussia Dortmund) 7 champions from associations 1–7 16 winners from the second qualifying roundKnockout phase(8 teams)6 group winners from the group stage 2 best-ranked group runners-up from the group stage
Teams 55 teams entered the competition: the national champions of each of the top 48 nations in the UEFA coefficient rankings (except Liechtenstein and Albania), plus the runners-up from each of the top eight nations and UEFA Champions League holders, Borussia Dortmund. The national champions of the associations ranked 1–7 (Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal and England), plus the title holders, all received a bye to the group stage, while the national champions of the associations ranked 8–16 and the runners-up of the associations ranked 1–8 all entered in the second qualifying round. The remaining national champions from the associations ranked 17–48 entered in the first qualifying round.
Group stage Borussia Dortmund Real Madrid Bayern Munich Porto Juventus Monaco PSV Eindhoven Manchester United Second qualifying round Parma Sporting CP Olympiacos Brøndby Barcelona Newcastle United Wüstenrot Salzburg IFK Göteborg Paris Saint-Germain Galatasaray Spartak Moscow Rosenborg Bayer Leverkusen Beşiktaş Lierse Sparta Prague Feyenoord First qualifying round Sion MTK CSKA Sofia Lantana Widzew Łódź Dinamo Tbilisi Sileks Valletta Rangers Košice Kareda Derry City Steaua București Skonto Constructorul Chișinău Pyunik Croatia Zagreb Maribor Crusaders Jeunesse Esch Dynamo Kyiv Jazz Barry Town GÍ Anorthosis Famagusta MPKC Mozyr Partizan Neftçi Beitar Jerusalem ÍA Notes
Round and draw dates The schedule of the competition was as follows (all draws were held in Geneva, Switzerland, unless stated otherwise).
PhaseRoundDraw dateFirst legSecond legQualifyingFirst qualifying round9 July 199723 July 199730 July 1997Second qualifying round13 August 199727 August 1997Group stageMatchday 129 August 199717 September 1997Matchday 21 October 1997Matchday 322 October 1997Matchday 45 November 1997Matchday 526–27 November 1997Matchday 610 December 1997Knockout phaseQuarter-finals17 December 19974 March 199818 March 1998Semi-finals20 March 1998(Lausanne)1 April 199815 April 1998Final20 May 1998 at Amsterdam Arena, Amsterdam
Qualifying rounds
First qualifying round
Second qualifying round
Group stage
Bayer Leverkusen, Beşiktaş, Košice, Feyenoord, Lierse, Newcastle United, Olympiacos, Parma, Sparta Prague (who already qualified for the 1991-92 European Cup group stage) and Sporting CP made their debut in the group stage. Košice lost all six of their group stage matches and thus became the first team to finish a Champions League group stage with no points. They were also first team from Slovakia to play in group stage.
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
Group F
Ranking of second-placed teams
Knockout stage
Bracket
Quarter-finals
Semi-finals
Final
Top goalscorers RankNameTeamGoals1 Alessandro Del Piero Juventus102 Thierry Henry Monaco73 Filippo Inzaghi Juventus6 Serhiy Rebrov Dynamo Kyiv65 Andy Cole Manchester United5 Andriy Shevchenko Dynamo Kyiv57 Stefan Beinlich Bayer Leverkusen4 Oktay Derelioğlu Beşiktaş4 Emerson Bayer Leverkusen4 Victor Ikpeba Monaco4 Carsten Jancker Bayern Munich4 Fernando Morientes Real Madrid4 Sigurd Rushfeldt Rosenborg4 Davor Šuker Real Madrid4 David Trezeguet Monaco4 Stéphane Chapuisat Borussia Dortmund4 Harald Brattbakk Rosenborg4 Roar Strand Rosenborg4
See also 1997 UEFA Intertoto Cup 1997–98 UEFA Cup 1997–98 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup
References
External links
1997–98 All matches – season at UEFA website European Cup results at RSSSF All scorers 1997–98 UEFA Champions League (excluding qualifying round) according to protocols UEFA + all scorers qualifying round - results and line-ups (archive)