The 2005–06 UEFA Champions League was the 51st season of UEFA's premier European club football tournament, the UEFA Champions League and the 14th since it was rebranded from the European Cup in 1992. 74 teams from 50 football associations took part, starting with the first qualifying round played on 12 July 2005.
The final was played on 17 May 2006 at Stade de France, Saint-Denis between Barcelona and Arsenal. In the 18th minute, Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann became the first player to be sent off in a European Cup final. Despite the disadvantage, Sol Campbell gave the English side the lead in the 37th minute. Samuel Eto'o brought Barcelona back on level terms in the 76th minute, before Juliano Belletti scored the winning goal five minutes later.
The defending champions were Liverpool and as they did not qualify by their league position, UEFA gave them special dispensation and allowed them to defend their title from the first qualifying round of the competition. They made the group stage and progressed but were eliminated by Benfica in the first knockout round. From the following season, UEFA reserved a berth in the group stage for the defending champions regardless of their league position.[1][2]
A total of 74 teams from 49 of the 52 UEFA member associations participated in the 2005–06 UEFA Champions League (the exception being Liechtenstein, which does not organise a domestic league, Andorra and San Marino). The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:[3]
For the 2005–06 UEFA Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2004 UEFA country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 1999–2000 to 2003–04.[4]
Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations may have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below:
Because the title holders, Liverpool, entered the competition in the first qualifying round rather than the group stage, the following changes to the default access list were made:[5]
League positions of the previous season qualified via league position shown in parentheses. Liverpool qualified as title holders. (TH: Champions League title holders).
The schedule of the competition is as follows (all draws are held at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, unless stated otherwise).[6]
Title-holders Liverpool, as well as 23 league champions from countries ranked 27 or lower in the 2004 UEFA ranking, were drawn against each other and played two matches, home and away, with the winners advancing to the second qualifying round. Though they finished fifth in the Premier League in 2004–05 (at the time, only four teams from an association were allowed to compete in the Champions League), Liverpool were granted a special exemption by UEFA as the holders, whereby they were placed into the first qualification round,[7][8][9] and were drawn against TNS in that round.[10][11]
The 12 winners from the first qualifying round, 10 champions from countries ranked 17–26, and six second–placed teams from countries ranked 10–15 were drawn against each other and played two matches, home and away, with the winners advancing to the third qualifying round.
The 14 winners from the second qualifying round, six champions from countries ranked 11–16, three second–placed teams from countries ranked 7–9, six third–placed teams from countries ranked 1–6, and three fourth–placed teams from countries ranked 1–3 were drawn to play 2 matches, home and away, with the winners advancing to the group stage and losers advancing to the first round of the UEFA Cup.
Brown: Group A; Red: Group B; 
Orange: Group C; 
Yellow: Group D; Green: Group E; Blue: Group F; 
Purple: Group G; 
Pink: Group H.16 winners from the third qualifying round, 10 champions from countries ranked 1–10, and 6 second-placed teams from countries ranked 1–6 were drawn into 8 groups of 4 teams each. Normally two teams from the same association cannot be drawn in the same group. The only exception is Liverpool because of their abnormal qualification as title holders because not having finished in the top four of the English league, Liverpool were given no "association protection" in the tournament. For the group stage, the only team from the same association they could be drawn with was Chelsea, as the rest were in the same seeding pot.[12][13][14][15] The top 2 teams in each group advanced to the Champions League knock-out stage, while the third-placed teams advanced to the Round of 32 in the UEFA Cup.[16]
Tiebreakers are applied in the following order:[17]
Real Betis, Villarreal, Udinese, Thun and Artmedia Bratislava made their debut appearance in the group stage.[18]
The final was played on 17 May 2006 at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France.
Statistics exclude qualifying rounds.
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