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The UEFA Champions League, formerly known as the European Cup, is the premier club tournament in European football. It generates interest from around the globe and is arguably the highest profile tournament in the world for club sides, and second only to the World Cup in terms of following. Live Champions League matches are always big draws and you can access coverage from the comfort of your own pc through our dedicated member’s area. Whether it’s Manchester United live, Real Madrid online or Inter Milan streaming that you want, Live Sports Network offers the chance to source coverage of live Champions League matches throughout Europe.

The 2009/10 Champions League tournament should prove just as exciting and as unpredictable as in years gone by. The great and the good of Europe are almost all present.

England supply EPL champs and 2008 Champions League winners Manchester United as well as Chelsea and five-times winners Liverpool. Losing 2006 finalists Arsenal may join them if they progress through the qualifying rounds. Champions Barcelona join bitter domestic rivals and big-spenders Real Madrid along with the ever-improving Sevilla as Spain’s entrants. Atletico Madrid, like Arsenal, must go through the play-off round to qualify. Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Juventus, and Olympic Marseille also enter the competition at the group stage and with the likes of Rangers and Celtic from Glasgow, Porto, Anderlecht, CSKA Moscow and AZ Aalkmar all capable of causing upset, it would be a brave punter who put their cash on a winner at this stage.

UEFA Champions League Structure

The 2009/10 competition sees the introduction of a series of changes to the structure in comparison with previous years. The main differences involve the pre-group stage qualifying.

22 teams will now qualify automatically for the group stages as opposed to 16 last year. These places will be taken by the three nations with the highest UEFA coefficient ranking (3 teams), countries ranked 4-6 (2 teams), with associations ranked 7-12 all having one team each in addition to the current Champions of Europe - this year that place goes to Barcelona.

A fourth qualifying round has been added and a defined split has been made in the qualifying process; the Champions Path and the Best-placed path.

The Champions Path starts in round one with the Champions of the countries ranked 50-53 playing two two-legged ties, home and away. The winners join the Champions of those countries ranked 17-49 (excluding Liechtenstein) who again play-off for places in round three. Round three consists of the above winners plus the association Champions from ranks 14-16 and the resultant 10 winners again play-off home and away for places in the UEFA Champions League group stage.

 

 

The Best-placed path sees the third-placed side from UEFA’s sixth-ranked association join the runners-up from associations ranked 7-15 play home and way tie’s in round three. Those victorious sides go into the fourth play-off round along with the fourth-placed sides from the first three associations on UEFA’s list plus the third-placed sides from the next two associations in ranking order. The five winners enter the UEFA Champions League group stages. The losing teams from round three and the play-off round four enter the UEFA Europa League at the play-off and group stages respectively.

At no point can clubs from either path meet during the qualifying phase of the tournament.

After the qualifying rounds, 10 teams will have emerged to compete with the 22 teams automatically placed into the group stage of the competition.  In this stage, the 32 teams will be drawn into groups of four teams where each team will compete with every team in its group twice.  The two top clubs per group will advance to the next stage. The third-placed team in each UEFA Champions League Group will also enter the UEFA Europa League at the last 32 stage with the four teams with the best records being seeded along with the UEFA Europa League group winners.

As in previous tournaments, the top two teams from each group will then play-off in a straight knock-out competition until the final, which this year is to be held on Saturday 22^nd May in Madrid.

Brief History of the Champions League

At first, the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Champions League was instituted under the name European Cup.  Strictly speaking, this competition is supposed to be for national football league champions in Europe.  The idea was presented in 1955 by French Gabriel Hanot and it became a resounding success across Europe.

 

 

Later in the 1992-1993 season, the European Cup was renamed to UEFA Champions League and organized in its current structure where players need not be league champions in their own countries.  They only need to be one of the top performers in their own countries to get a chance to qualify for the UEFA Champions League.  This move significantly boosted the Champions’ League popularity and fan base.

Never Miss Out:  Watch Champions League Live Online

The Champions League is one of the most eagerly awaited sporting events in the world.  Given the level of interest, getting hold of a ticket to watch live Champions League football can be very difficult.

Fortunately, you can now watch live Champions League games from the qualifying rounds to the final through live online football streaming courtesy of Live Sports Network. Whether you want to watch Barcelona live, enjoy live Champions League football from Old Trafford, or see Inter Milan live in Europe, Free-Football.tv can offer the resource to do it via our dedicated members area.

Watch Champions League live football right here on Live Sports Network.