The 2002 UEFA Champions League Final was the final match of the 2001–02 UEFA Champions League, Europe's primary 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 ...

competition. The show-piece event was contested between

Bayer Leverkusen Bayer 04 Leverkusen Fußball GmbH, also known as Bayer 04 Leverkusen (), Bayer Leverkusen, or simply Leverkusen, is a professional football club based in Leverkusen in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The club competes in the Bundesliga, t ...

of Germany and

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 ...

of Spain at

Hampden Park Hampden Park (Scottish Gaelic: ''Pàirc Hampden''), often referred to as Hampden, is a football stadium in the Mount Florida area of Glasgow, Scotland. The -capacity venue serves as the national stadium of football in Scotland. It is the no ...

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...

, Scotland on Wednesday, 15 May 2002, to decide the winner of the Champions League. Leverkusen appeared in the final for the first time, whereas Real Madrid appeared in their 12th final. Each club needed to progress through two group stages, and two knockout rounds to reach the final. Real Madrid won their group and moved into the second group stage, which they also won, before facing the defending champions

Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional men's football team, which pla ...

and

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

in the knockout stage. Bayer Leverkusen finished second in their group behind Barcelona and progressed to the second group stage. There, they won their group, before beating the likes of

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

and

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

to progress to the final. Before the match, a minute of silence was held in honour of Ukrainian manager

Valeriy Lobanovskyi Valeriy Vasylyovych Lobanovskyi ( uk, Вале́рій Васи́льович Лобано́вський ; russian: Вале́рий Васи́льевич Лобано́вский; 6 January 1939 – 13 May 2002) was а Ukrainian football play ...

, who died two days earlier. Real Madrid were regarded as favourites before the match and took the lead in the eighth minute through Raúl.

Lúcio Lucimar Ferreira da Silva (born 8 May 1978), commonly known as Lúcio, is a Brazilian former professional footballer who played as a centre-back. A tall and physically strong defender who excelled in the air, Lúcio was known for his long, sur ...

equalised five minutes later, before

Zinedine Zidane Zinedine Yazid Zidane (; born 23 June 1972), popularly known as Zizou, is a French professional football manager and former player who played as an attacking midfielder. He most recently coached Spanish club Real Madrid and is one of the mos ...

scored the winning goal on the stroke of half-time, a left-footed volley into the top corner that has since gone down as one of the greatest goals in the history of the competition, to secure Real Madrid's ninth European Cup.

Teams

''In the following table, finals until 1992 were in the European Cup era, since 1993 were in the UEFA Champions League era.''

Route to the final

Match

Details

Statistics

Post match

In the 2001–02 season, Bayer Leverkusen finished second in the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footb ...

and lost in the

2002 DFB-Pokal Final The 2002 DFB-Pokal Final decided the winner of the 2001–02 DFB-Pokal, the 59th season of Germany's premier knockout football cup competition. It was played on 11 May 2002 at the Olympiastadion in Berlin. Schalke 04 won the match 4–2 against B ...

. After the match, Leverkusen manager

Klaus Toppmöller Klaus Toppmöller (born 12 August 1951) is a German football manager and former professional player. Playing career A forward, Toppmöller scored 108 Bundesliga goals for 1. FC Kaiserslautern in 204 matches in the West German top flight. He e ...

expressed his disappointment on finishing this strong season without a title, stating: "the disappointment is huge – you don't always get the rewards you deserve in football, and no-one knows that better than us after what we have been through. We must seek consolation. Doing what we have done means we have had a very good season – but what has happened to us is difficult and makes us feel bitter." Five Leverkusen players, Michael Ballack,

Hans-Jörg Butt Hans-Jörg Butt (; born 28 May 1974) is a German former footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Known for taking penalty kicks, and for often running into the opposing penalty box in an attempt to find a winner whenever his team were trailing, h ...

, Oliver Neuville, Carsten Ramelow, and Bernd Schneider went on to add a fourth silver medal at the

2002 FIFA World Cup The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams organized by ...

. However, the gold medal-winning Brazil squad also included a Leverkusen player in

References

External links

2001–02 UEFA Champions League season
at UEFA.com {{DEFAULTSORT:2002 Uefa Champions League Final

Final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...

UEFA Champions League Finals International club association football competitions hosted by Scotland European Cup Final 2002 European Cup Final 2002 U Champions Cham International sports competitions in Glasgow 2000s in Glasgow May 2002 sports events in the United Kingdom Football in Glasgow