The 1995–96 UEFA Champions League was the 41st season of

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs fo ...

's premier European club

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

tournament, and the fourth since its rebranding as the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

. The tournament was won by

Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football league system. Founded in ...

, who beat defending champions

Ajax Ajax may refer to: Greek mythology and tragedy * Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea * Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris * ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Gree ...

on penalties in the final for their first European Cup since

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

, and their second overall. It was the only Champions League title that Juventus won in the 1990s, despite reaching the next two finals, and one of only three Italian wins in the final, despite there being a

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Cop ...

club in every final for seven consecutive years from

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment building in Amsterdam after two of its engin ...

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

. It was the first tournament in which three points were awarded for a win instead of two.

Teams

24 teams entered the competition – the national champions of each of the top 24 nations in the UEFA coefficient rankings, including UEFA Champions League holders,

. The national champions of the associations ranked 1–7, plus the title holders, all received a bye to the group stage, while the national champions of the associations ranked 8–24 entered in the qualifying round. The remaining national champions from the associations ranked 25–47 were only allowed to participate in

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, clay ...

.UEFA Country Ranking 1995
/ref>

Round and draw dates

The schedule of the competition is as follows (all draws are held in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situa ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

Qualifying round

Dynamo Kyiv won their tie against

Aalborg BK Aalborg Boldspilklub is a Danish sports club based in the city of Aalborg. The club is also known as AaB for short (cf. logo) or Aalborg BK. Through time the club has had branches in cricket, tennis, ice hockey, handball, and basketball, but curre ...

, but, in their first group game against Panathinaikos, they were accused of a failed attempt to bribe the referee,

Antonio López Nieto Antonio Jesús López Nieto (born 25 January 1958 in Málaga, Andalusia) is a former Spanish football referee, who officiated at one FIFA World Cup and during the UEFA Champions League. In 1995, López accused representatives of Dynamo Kyiv of a ...

, to get a win. Despite an appeal, they were ejected from the competition and banned for two years, with Aalborg BK replacing them in the group stage. Dynamo's ban was eventually reduced to one season.

Group stage

11 teams of 16 made their debut in the UEFA Champions League group stage:

Blackburn Rovers Blackburn Rovers Football Club is a professional football club, based in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, which competes in the , the second tier of the English football league system. They have played home matches at Ewood Park since 1890. Th ...

Borussia Dortmund Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund (), BVB (), or simply Dortmund (), is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its men's professional fo ...

Ferencváros Ferencváros () is the 9th district of Budapest ( hu, Budapest IX. kerülete), Hungary. Name The southern suburb of Pest was named after King Francis I on 4 December 1792 when he was crowned king of Hungary. History The development of Fe ...

Grasshopper Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are among what is possibly the most ancient living group of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grasshopp ...

Legia Warsaw Legia Warszawa (), commonly referred to as Legia Warsaw or simply Legia, is a professional football club based in Warsaw, Poland. Legia is the most successful Polish football club in history, winning record 15 Ekstraklasa champions titles, ...

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...

, Panathinaikos,

Real Madrid Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (, meaning ''Royal Madrid Football Club''), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional football club based in Madrid. Founded in 1902 as Madrid Football Club, the club has traditionally wor ...

and Rosenborg. Panathinaikos had already played in the group stage of the 1991–92 European Cup. Aalborg, Ferencvaros, Grasshopper, Legia and Rosenborg were the first teams to play in group stage from Denmark, Hungary, Switzerland, Poland and Norway respectively.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Knockout stage

Bracket

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Top goalscorers

References

External links

1995–96 All matches – season at UEFA website

* All scorers 1995–96 UEFA Champions League (excluding qualifying round) according t
protocols UEFA
+ all scorer

– results and line-ups (archive) {{DEFAULTSORT:1995-96 Uefa Champions League 1 1995-96