The 2012–13 UEFA Champions League was the 58th season of Europe's premier club

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tournament organised by

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, and the 21st season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to 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

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was played at

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, England, in recognition of the 150th anniversary of the formation of England's

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, the world's oldest football association. It came just two years after Wembley hosted the final in

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, making it the seventh occasion Wembley Stadium (current and old) had hosted the Champions League final.

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, who had been runners-up in the previous season, beat

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rivals

Borussia Dortmund Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, often known simply as Borussia Dortmund () or by its initialism BVB (), or just Dortmund by International fans, is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is ...

2–1 to win their fifth title in the competition. It was the first all-German final and the fourth final to feature two teams from the same association, after the finals of

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and

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. The defending champions, Chelsea, were eliminated in the

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, becoming the first title holders to leave the competition at this stage. They went on to win the 2013 UEFA Europa League final, and became the first team to win the

Europa League The UEFA Europa League (UEL), usually known simply as the Europa League, is an annual association football, football club competition organised since 1971 by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European footb ...

as the holders of the Champions League.

Association team allocation

A total of 76 teams from 52 of the 53

member associations participate in the 2012–13 UEFA Champions League (the exception being

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, which do not organise a domestic league). The association ranking based on the

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 (country rankings only), ...

s is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association: *Associations 1–3 each have four teams qualify *Associations 4–6 each have three teams qualify *Associations 7–15 each have two teams qualify *Associations 16–53 (except Liechtenstein) each have one team qualify Because the winners of the

2011–12 UEFA Champions League The 2011–12 UEFA Champions League was the 57th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 20th season in its current Champions League format. As part of a trial that started in the 2009–10 UEFA Europa Lea ...

, Chelsea, failed to qualify for the 2012–13 UEFA Champions League through their domestic league (finishing sixth in the

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), and because of the restriction that no association can have more than four teams playing in the Champions League, Chelsea's entry in the 2012–13 UEFA Champions League as title holders came at the expense of

Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as simply Tottenham (, , , ) or Spurs, is a professional Association football, football club based in Tottenham, North London, England. The club itself has stated that it should always ...

, the fourth-placed team of the 2011–12 Premier League (who entered the

instead).

Association ranking

For the 2012–13 UEFA Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2011

s, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2006–07 to 2010–11.

Distribution

were due to enter the Champions League play-off round for non-champions, but instead entered the Europa League because Chelsea won the Champions League the previous season. As this spot in the play-off round was vacated, the following change to the default allocation system was made to compensate: *The third-placed team of association 6 (Portugal) and the runners-up of association 7 (Russia) were promoted from the third qualifying round to the play-off round

Teams

League positions of the previous season qualified via league position shown in parentheses. Chelsea qualified as title holders. (TH: Champions League title holders; EL: Europa League title holders). ;Notes

Round and draw dates

All draws were held at UEFA headquarters in

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unless stated otherwise.

Qualifying rounds

In the qualifying rounds and the play-off round, teams were divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their 2012 UEFA club coefficients, and then drawn into two-legged home-and-away ties. Teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other.

First qualifying round

The draws for the first and second qualifying rounds were held on 25 June 2012. The first legs were played on 3 July and the second legs were played on 10 July 2012.

Second qualifying round

The first legs were played on 17 and 18 July and the second legs were played on 24 and 25 July 2012.

Third qualifying round

The third qualifying round was split into two separate sections: one for champions (Champions Route) and one for non-champions (League Route). The losing teams in both sections entered the Europa League play-off round. The draw for the third qualifying round was held on 20 July 2012. The first legs were played on 31 July and 1 August and the second legs were played on 7 and 8 August 2012.

Play-off round

The play-off round was split into two separate sections: one for champions (Champions Route) and one for non-champions (League Route). The losing teams in both sections entered the Europa League group stage. The draw for the play-off round was held on 10 August 2012. The first legs were played on 21 and 22 August, and the second legs were played on 28 and 29 August 2012.

Group stage

The draw for the group stage was held in

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on 30 August 2012. The 32 teams were allocated into four pots based on their 2012 UEFA club coefficients, with the title holders, Chelsea, being placed in Pot 1 automatically. They were drawn into eight groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other. In each group, teams played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The matchdays were 18–19 September, 2–3 October, 23–24 October, 6–7 November, 20–21 November and 4–5 December 2012. The group winners and runners-up advanced to the

round of 16 A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

, while the third-placed teams entered the Europa League round of 32. A total of 17 national associations were represented in the group stage.

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, Nordsjælland and

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made their debut appearances in the group stage.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Knockout phase

In the

knockout phase A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final. The mechanism of the draws for each round is as follows: *In the draw for the round of 16, the eight group winners were seeded and the eight group runners-up were unseeded. The seeded teams were drawn against the unseeded teams, with the seeded teams hosting the second leg. Teams from the same group or the same association could not be drawn against each other *In the draws for the quarter-finals onwards, there were no seedings, and teams from the same group or the same association could be drawn against each other

Bracket

Round of 16

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Statistics

Statistics exclude qualifying rounds and play-off round.

Top goalscorers

Prize money

For the 2012–13 season, UEFA awarded €2.1 million to each team in the play-off round. For reaching the group stage, UEFA awarded a base fee of €8.6 million. A win in the group was awarded €1 million and a draw was worth €500,000. In addition, UEFA paid teams reaching the first knockout round €3.5 million, each quarter-finalist €3.9 million, €4.9 million for each semi-finalist, €6.5 million for the runners-up and €10.5 million for the winners. *Playoffs: €2,100,000 *Base fee for group stage: €8,600,000 *Group match victory: €1,000,000 *Group match draw: €500,000 *Round of 16: €3,500,000 *Quarter-finals: €3,900,000 *Semi-finals: €4,900,000 *Losing finalist: €6,500,000 *Winning the Final: €10,500,000 A large part of the distributed revenue from the UEFA Champions League is linked to the "market pool", the distribution of which is determined by the value of the television market in each country. For the 2012–13 season,

Juventus Juventus Football Club (; from , ), commonly known as Juventus or colloquially as Juve (), is an Italian professional Association football, football List of football clubs in Italy, club based in Turin, Piedmont, who compete in Serie A, the ...

, who were eliminated on quarter-finals, earned nearly €65.3 million in total of which €20.5 million was prize money, compared with the €55.0 million earned by

, who won the tournament and was awarded with €35.9 million of prize money.

References

External links

2012–13 UEFA Champions League
UEFA.com
2012–13 UEFA Champions League Technical Report
UEFA.com {{DEFAULTSORT:2012-13 UEFA Champions League UEFA Champions League seasons 1 1