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UEFA Champions League Stats and Facts

UEFA Champions League Stats and Facts

With the rich history of the Champions League and the teams who grapple with delivering silverware to adoring fanbases, there are, expectedly, hoards of UEFA Champions League Stats and Facts to sink our teeth into here at ZICOBALL.

In this article:

Extortionately-priced plane tickets have been purchased, and hotels are now unsurprisingly fully booked ahead of a bumper Chamopins League-focused weekend in Paris. Stade de France awaits European Royalty in the continent’s flagship domestic footballing event.

For the third time in a European Cup Final, it’s Liverpool vs Real Madrid. Six-time winners vs fourteen-time victors. Jürgen Klopp vs Carlo Ancelotti. 

UEFA Champion League Stats and Facts

Liverpool vs Real Madrid Stats and Facts

  • Luis Díaz will be the second Colombian ever to step foot on the pitch in a Champions Final. If Liverpool’s January recruit is to start the game, that record will be his. Juan Cuadrado’s 66th-minute sub appearance in Juventus’s 2016/17 defeat to Barcelona was the first.
  • Real Madrid’s 25 consecutive seasons (1997/98 to 2021/22) of reaching the Champions League knockout stages is the longest streak of any club on the continent.
  • Real Madrid are in the history books for conceding the most goals by a Champions League-winning team in 1999/20, shipping 23 goals in 17 matches.
  • This season, Karim Benzema has scored 15 goals in the Champions League, just two shy of the all-time record in a single campaign. In 2013/14, Cristiano Ronaldo netted 17 for Real Madrid on a goal-laden tour of Europe’s best clubs.
  • Trent Alexander-Arnold’s third appearance in a Champions League final would make him the second-youngest player to feature in three finals in the competition’s history. The youngest? Alessandro Del Piero in Juventus’ 1-0 defeat at the hands of Real Madrid in 1998.
  • Sadio Mané is now the highest-scoring African in the knockout stages of the Champions League with 15 goals. Liverpool’s Senegalese starlet surpassed Didier Drogba & also moved level with Frank Lampard as the highest-scoring player in the Champions League knockout phase for a Premier League team.
  • Ibrahima Konaté has featured in 27 games for Liverpool and remains undefeated in red, a stretch that includes two domestic cup finals. The Frenchman is set to nudge his silverware haul to three in less than thirty undefeated matches.
  • Unfortunately, both sides will receive only 19,612 to ‘fill’ Paris’ 81,000-seater.
  • Rodrygo is the first player to score twice in injury time of a Champions League knockout match.
  • Liverpool (10) and three other clubs have reached double-figures for European Cup final appearances – AC Milan (11) and Bayern Munich (11), and Real Madrid (16). European royalty. 
  • The 147 goals scored by Liverpool in all competitions in 2021-22 is the most they’ve ever managed in a single campaign. One game to go.
  • Having attended four, only Sir Alex Ferguson has taken an English club to more European Cup finals than Jürgen Klopp. Liverpool’s head coach is now level on finals (three) alongside Liverpool great Bob Paisley.
  • Parc des Princes in Paris was host to Bob Paisley’s Liverpool securing a 1-0 European Cup final win vs Real Madrid in 1981.
  • Benzema’s seven Champions League goals against English sides is the loftiest total by a player in a single season.
  • Being played for the third time, Real Madrid vs Liverpool becomes the most played Champions League final ever. Both clubs have won one each, setting the weekend’s fixture up as the decider.
  • During the semi-final second leg against Manchester City, Real Madrid didn’t have a shot on target in the first 89 minutes.

UEFA Champions League Stats and Facts

  • Eight sides have managed to lift the European Cup/Champions League on their competition debut: Real Madrid (1955/56), Inter Milan (1963/64), Celtic (1966/67), Nottingham Forest (1978/79), Aston Villa (1981/82), Marseille (1992/93), Ajax (1994/95), and Juventus (1995/96).
  • Only two clubs have appeared in the European Cup/Champions League final more than once whilst boasting a 100% success rate: Nottingham Forest (1979 & 1980) and Porto (1987 & 2004).
  • The most significant margin of victory in a Champions League final is four goals, which has occurred on four separate occasions. The most recent came in 1994 when 70,000 spectators watched then four-time winners AC Milan beat Barcelona 4–0 in Athens.
  • Two teams have faced a record four penalty shoot-outs in the Champions League: Bayern Munich and Juventus. Liverpool (three) and Bayern Munich (four) are the only teams to have won three penalty shoot-outs.
  • Ten clubs have navigated the European Cup/Champions League unbeaten before lifting the trophy, and only four clubs have done so twice: Liverpool had six wins & three draws in 1980–81, and seven wins & two draws in 1983–84. AC Milan, Ajax and Fergie’s Manchester United make up the rest.