The UEFA Youth League is an annual 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 c ...

competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) since 2013. In its current format, it is contested by the youth teams of the clubs competing in 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 competit ...

group stage, plus the domestic youth champions of the best-ranked national associations. The semi-finals and final matches have been traditionally played at the

Colovray Stadium Centre Sportif de Colovray Nyon is where FC Stade Nyonnais play their home association football, football and rugby football, rugby games. The site is opposite the UEFA headquarters. The centre has six pitches for different things and hosts a vari ...

Nyon Nyon (; outdated German: or ; outdated Italian: , ) is a municipality in Nyon District in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It is located some 25 kilometers north east of Geneva's city centre, and since the 1970s it has become part of the Ge ...

, Switzerland. The winners are awarded the Lennart Johansson Trophy, named in honour of the former UEFA president. The most successful teams are

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 ci ...

and

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...

, with two titles each. Chelsea won back-to-back titles in 2015 and 2016, while Barcelona won the inaugural season of the competition and clinched their second trophy in 2018. The current champions are Portuguese side Benfica, who beat Red Bull Salzburg 6–0 in the 2022 final.

History

In May 2010, UEFA organised a match, referred to as the "UEFA Under-18 Challenge", between the under-18 teams of Bayern Munich and

Internazionale Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly referred to as Internazionale () or simply Inter, and colloquially known as Inter Milan in English-speaking countries, is an Italian professional football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Inter is t ...

, three days prior to the

UEFA Champions League Final The UEFA Champions League is a seasonal football competition established in 1955. Prior to the 1992–93 season, the tournament was named the European Cup. The UEFA Champions League is open to the league champions of all UEFA (Union of Europea ...

between the respective senior sides. Internazionale won the match 2–0 with two goals from

Denis Alibec Denis Alibec (born 5 January 1991) is a Romanian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Liga I club Farul Constanța and the Romania national team. Alibec began his senior career at Farul Constanța, and at age 18 was signed by It ...

. The match was part of "UEFA Grassroots Day", and acted as an inspiration for the UEFA Youth League. The teams in the first tournament, 2013–14 UEFA Youth League, played a group stage with the same composition and calendar as the 2013–14 UEFA Champions League group stage, and was held on a 'trial basis'. The eight group-winners and eight runners-up from group stage then participated in a knockout phase. Unlike the

, the knockout phase had single-leg ties, with the semi-finals and final played at neutral venues. British media commented that the competition was formed to displace the NextGen Series. In April 2014,

became the first champion, beating Benfica by 3–0 in the final-four held in

. After a two-year trial period, the UEFA Youth League became a permanent UEFA competition starting from the 2015–16 season, with the tournament expanded from 32 to 64 teams to allow the youth domestic champions of the top 32 associations according to their

UEFA country coefficient In European football, the UEFA coefficients are statistics based in weighted arithmetic means used for ranking and seeding teams in club and international competitions. Introduced in 1979 for men's football tournaments, and after applied in wome ...

s to also participate. The 32 UEFA Champions League group stage youth teams retain the group stage format, with the group winners advancing to the round of 16 and the runners-up advancing to the play-offs. The 32 youth domestic champions play two rounds of two-legged ties, with the eight winners advancing to the play-offs, where they play a single match at home against the Champions League path runners-up. The round of 16 onwards retain the same format of single-leg ties as before.

Finals

*All semi-finals and finals to date have been played at

, Switzerland.

Winners

;By club ;By country

Broadcasters

2021–2024

Up to four matches per week (total 39 matches per-season) are streamed through UEFA.tv channel in the unsold markets with highlights available in all territories.

Europe

Outside Europe

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uefa Youth Champions League Youth League Sports leagues established in 2013 Multi-national association football leagues in Europe European youth sports competitions 2013 establishments in Europe