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

UEFA The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; ; ) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach soccer, beach football in Europe and the List of transcontinental countries#A ...

's premier European club

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tournament, and the third since its rebranding as the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

. The tournament was won by

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), ''Ajax'' (play), by the an ...

of the

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with a late goal in the

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against defending champions

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. Ajax won the competition without losing a game, either in the group or the knock-out stage, clinching the title for the first time since

1973 Events January * January 1 – The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark 1973 enlargement of the European Communities, enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union. * January 14 - The 16-0 19 ...

. 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 The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

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

in the final.

Teams

24 teams entered the competition: the UEFA Champions League holders,

, who also won their domestic league, as well as the 23 best-ranked national champions according to the 1994 UEFA club seeding coefficients. The title holders and the 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 the 1994–95 UEFA Cup.

Distribution

Since the title holders (

) qualified via their domestic league and club seeding coefficient, the title holder spot was vacated and the following changes to the default access list were made: *The champions ranked 8th (

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) were promoted from the qualifying round to the group stage. *The champions ranked 24th ( Avenir Beggen) were promoted from the UEFA Cup preliminary round to the Champions League qualifying round.

Ranking

The teams were ranked according to their 1995 UEFA seeding coefficients, which took into account performances in European competitions from 1989–90 to 1993–94. Each club and national association had a seeding coefficient calculated (total points divided by total matches), with clubs taking the higher of these values as their final coefficient. This ranking then determined the competition (Champions League or UEFA Cup) and round (group stage or qualifying round) the teams would enter. Therefore, which associations had a participating team in the 1994–95 Champions League was partially dependant upon which club won the national championship.

Round and draw dates

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

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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

Group stage

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

, Bayern Munich, Benfica, Casino Salzburg,

Dynamo Kyiv The Football Club 'Dynamo Kyiv', also known as Dynamo Kyiv, or simply Dynamo, ( ) is a Ukrainian professional football club based in Kyiv. Founded in 1927 as a Kyivan football team of republican branch of the bigger Soviet Dynamo Sports Society ...

, Hajduk Split,

Manchester United Manchester United Football Club, commonly referred to as Man United (often stylised as Man Utd) or simply United, is a professional association football, football club based in Old Trafford (area), Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, Engl ...

Paris Saint-Germain Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain () or simply PSG, is a French professional Association football, football club based in Paris. They compete in Ligue 1, the French football league system, top d ...

and Steaua București. Two of these teams, Benfica and Dynamo Kyiv, had previously contested the 1991–92 European Cup group stage. Casino Salzburg, Hajduk Split, Manchester United and Steaua București were the first teams to qualify for group stage from Austria, Croatia, England and Romania respectively. It was also the last edition of the Champions League that saw teams in the group stage awarded two points for each win, with one point awarded for each draw.

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 UEFA Champions League seasons 1 1