The European Cup is a prestigious tournament that pits the best club teams in the continent of Europe against one another. It features 32 clubs, with teams playing each other twice – once at home and once away – from fall to spring in a double round-robin format. Three points are awarded for a win and one point for a draw, and the team with the most points after all the games is declared the champion. The competition has been around for over a half century, with some of the sport’s most famous moments occurring during its history.

In the old days, winning a league title meant you automatically qualified for the European Cup. It was the pinnacle of achievement for a club, something to boast about to your friends and neighbors. Especially in the case of Ajax of Rotterdam, whose pioneering “Total Football” tactics under Johan Cruyff and other legendary players led them to three straight finals.

Nowadays, however, league champions are not the only ones to qualify for the European Cup. There are also the runner-ups in the top divisions of each country and, since the 2009-10 season, a second qualification'stream' for teams that don't have a Champions League or Europa League title to their name. The latter qualifies based on their performance in the UEFA club coefficient rankings. The two streams then split into eight groups of four teams. The group winners and runners-up advance to the knockout stage, which features quarterfinals, semifinals and the final.

Before the fall of the Iron Curtain, a European Cup game played anywhere east of Vienna would be the subject of fanciful stories and testimonies in the playground. The game may have been played in a far-away stadia with unfamiliar kits and players, but it was still the same football. The European Cup was like a trip to outer space for most children, and the excitement surrounding it is undimpingened by today's more globalized world. For more details please visit sports betting events

For the current season, the UEFA Champions League has been tweaked slightly in terms of how clubs enter and the format for the group phase. Previously, all 32 teams entered the tournament at the same time through the initial group phase, which was run in a double round-robin and included six matches. Now, there are eight groups of four with the initial draw seeding teams into Pot 1 based on their previous performance in other UEFA competitions. Then, the remaining pots are filled based on their 2018 UEFA club coefficient ranking, with no more than two teams from the same country being drawn together in any given group. The final round of 16 and quarterfinals also do not feature paired clubs from the same group, with a maximum of two clubs from any single association in the same bracket. For this reason, a number of interesting matchups are possible for the knockout phase.