The 1994–95 UEFA Champions League was the 40th edition 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 third 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 Ajax of the

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with a late goal in the final against defending champions

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. Ajax won the competition without losing a game, either in the group or the knock-out stage in winning the title for the first time since 1973. Compared to the previous edition of the European Cup, radical changes were made to the format of the tournament, due to a recently expired contract that bound

to the EBU for the transmission of the final. This gave occasion for a general review of the format, which attracted the interest of new and financially well-off private television companies. This edition included four groups of four teams each in the group stage, up from two groups of four teams each in 1993–94. It was also the first year in which eight teams advanced to the knock-out stage and the first of three years in which the champions of smaller nations entered the

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 ...

instead of the Champions League. It was also the first time that this competition was known as the UEFA Champions League from the first to the last match of the competition: in two previous seasons, the UEFA Champions League involved the matches played between the second round and the European Cup Final. Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's entrants were unable to participate for the third season in a row due to the UN economic sanctions.

were the defending champions, but were defeated by Ajax in the final.

Teams

24 teams entered the competition: the UEFA Champions League holders, AC Milan, as well as 23 best-ranked national champions according to UEFA club ranking. The title holders and other 7 best-ranked national champions received a bye to the group stage, while the national champions ranked 9–24 entered in the qualifying round. The remaining national champions were only allowed to participate in

Round and draw dates

The schedule of the competition is as follows. The draw was held in

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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 ...

on 20 July 1994, where qualifying round pairs as well as group formations were drawn. The knockout phase pairs were made automatically by a predetermined bracket.

Qualifying round

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Group stage

Ten of the sixteen participating teams made their UEFA Champions League group stage debut: AEK Athens, Ajax,

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 ...

, Benfica, Casino Salzburg, Dynamo Kyiv,

Hajduk Split Hrvatski nogometni klub Hajduk Split, commonly referred to as Hajduk Split () or simply Hajduk, is a Croatian professional football club based in Split, that competes in the Croatian First League, the top tier in Croatian football. Since 197 ...

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 ...

, Paris Saint-Germain and Steaua București. Two of these teams, Benfica and Dynamo Kyiv, had previously contested the

1991–92 European Cup The 1991–92 European Cup was the 37th season of the European Cup football club tournament. It was the first European Cup to have a group stage, from which the winning clubs progressed to the final. 1991–92 was the tournament's last edition bef ...

group stage. Casino, Hajduk and Steaua were the first teams to qualify for group stage from Austria, Croatia and Romania respectively.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Knockout stage

Bracket

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Top goalscorers

References

External links

1994–95 All matches – season at UEFA website

* All scorers 1994–95 UEFA Champions League (excluding qualifying round) according t
protocols UEFA
* All scorer

- results and line-ups (archive) {{DEFAULTSORT:1994-95 Uefa Champions League 1 UEFA Champions League seasons