Competition facts

UEFA Champions League finals: Did you know?

• Spain are the most successful nation (1998, 2000, 2002 and 2006) with four wins from seven final dates, one more triumph than Italy (1994, 1996 and 2003) from nine appearances.

• No team has played in more finals than AC Milan. This year's will be their sixth appearance, while they can equal Real Madrid CF's record of three victories if they triumph in Athens.

• Italy with 24 has the most appearances per nation in all-time European Champion Clubs' Cup finals - of those ten have ended in victory and 14 in defeat. England has recorded the same number of wins from 13 final appearances. For the record, Spain has 20 final appearances (eleven wins/nine defeats) and Germany 13 (six/seven).

• In the previous 14 finals, there have been ten outright wins and four matches decided on shoot-outs. A total of 36 goals have been scored with the most common results being 1-0 and 2-1, with both happening on three occasions apiece.

• Thirteen European Champion Clubs' Cup finals have gone to extra time. The finals of 1958, 1968, 1970 and 1992 were decided in the additional period, while the 1974 showpiece between FC Bayern München and Club Atlético de Madrid ended 1-1 after 120 minutes with Bayern subsequently winning a replay. The other eight of those finals have been settled by a penalty shoot-out after extra time: in 1984, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1996, 2001, 2003 and, most recently, 2005, when Liverpool defeated Milan 3-2 in the shoot-out after a 3-3 draw.

• Milan's 4-0 win against FC Barcelona in the 1994 final remains the biggest winning margin and the Rossoneri were also involved in the highest scoring showpiece when they shared six goals with Liverpool in 2005 before penalties. In terms of the all-time European Cup, Madrid's 7-3 defeat of Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960 remains the most impressive while FC Bayern München (1974 v Club Atlético de Madrid) and Milan (1989 v FC Steaua Bucuresti) also recorded 4-0 successes.

• No player has scored a hat-trick in a final. Daniele Massaro (Milan 1994), Karlheinz Riedle (BV Borussia Dortmund 1997) and Hernán Crespo (Milan 2005) all struck twice. In European Cup terms, only Ferenc Puskás (Madrid 1962) and Pierino Prati (Milan 1969) have managed a final hat-trick.

• Only Raúl González has scored in two different UEFA Champions League finals (Madrid 2000 and 2002) – adding him to an exclusive club of 12 players to have found the net in more than one European Cup showpiece. Alfredo di Stéfano leads the list having scored seven goals in five separate finals for Madrid.

• Jens Lehmann's red card in the 2006 final made him the first player to be dismissed in a European Cup final.

• The 2007 final is only the second time that the trophy has been contested by two teams that have both come through qualifying. The only previous occasion was in 1998/99 when Manchester United FC faced Bayern. Liverpool (2005) and Milan (2003) are two of only three teams to have triumphed having come through qualifying, along with Manchester United (1999).

• Liverpool and Milan both lost three games en route to the 2007 final, equalling the record for the most defeats by a finalist in a one group-stage format of Juventus (1998 and 1996) and Monaco (2004). Leverkusen (2002) and Juventus (2003) were both beaten five times in getting to the final under a two-group format.

• Athens was awarded the 2007 final after a decision by the UEFA Executive Committee at its meeting in Tallinn, Estonia in April 2005. The Greek capital is playing host to its first European final since the venue was rebuilt to stage the 2004 Olympic Games. The stadium previously provided the backdrop to the UEFA Champions League showpiece of 1993/94, when Milan were 4-0 winners against FC Barcelona. Prior to 1994, Athens also saw the European Cup lifted in 1982/83, the year after the venue was first inaugurated. On that occasion, Hamburger SV beat Juventus 1-0. The ground also staged the 1986/87 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final when AFC Ajax were 1-0 winners against 1. FC Lokomotiv Leipzig.

• The Athens Olympic Stadium will become only the third venue to stage a final on two occasions. The other two are Munich's Olympiastadion (1993 and 1997) and the Stade de France in Paris (2000 and 2006). In European Cup terms, Wembley in London and the Heysel Stadium in Brussels have held five apiece.

UEFA Champions League knockout stage: Did you know?

• Only six ties have gone to penalties. Four of these were finals – 1996, 2001, 2003 and 2005. The first two-legged tie decided on spot-kicks was PSV Eindhoven's 4-2 win against Olympique Lyonnais on 13 April 2005 after a 2-2 aggregate draw. The second was Liverpool's 4-1 semi-final win on 1 May 2007 against Chelsea after a 1-1 aggregate draw.

• In all, 12 ties have required extra time, including, in 2006/07, Milan's meeting with Celtic FC in the first knockout round and Liverpool's semi-final triumph against Chelsea. Along with the six ties mentioned above, four quarter-final and two first knockout round encounters have also needed an additional 30 minutes in an attempt to determine a winner.

• Madrid set a new record for knockout stage qualification in successive seasons. The 2006/07 campaign was the tenth straight season since 1997/98 that they made it beyond the group stage, moving them ahead of United, who appeared nine times in a row between 1996/97 and 2004/05. Overall, they have now played in the knockout stage eleven times, one more than United and Bayern.

• The last European Champion Clubs' Cup season that featured not one semi-finalist from either Spain or Italy, or England for that matter, was the 1990/91 competition.

• England's success in having three semi-finalists in 2006/07 has been matched on two other occasions in European football's premier club competition since 1992/93. In 1999/00, Valencia CF, Barcelona and Madrid all made it through, again with Bayern as the odd one out, with Madrid ultimately going all the way. Then, in 2002/03, Madrid gate-crashed an Italian semi-final party, as eventual winners Milan, FC Internazionale Milano and Juventus all contested the penultimate round.

• Teams from the same country have contested the final on two previous occasions. Madrid overcame Valencia 3-0 in Paris in 2000, and three years later Milan defeated Juventus 3-2 on penalties after a goalless draw at Old Trafford.

• Clarence Seedorf is the only player to win the European Cup with three clubs (Ajax 1995, Madrid 1998 and Milan 2003). Had Bayern gone all the way in 2006/07, Ottmar Hitzfeld would have joined Liverpool's Bob Paisley – 1977, 1978 and 1981 - as the only coach to win three times, having won with Dortmund in 1997 and Bayern in 2001.

• Hitzfeld and Ernst Happel (Feyenoord 1970, Hamburger SV 1983) are the only coaches to win with two different clubs, an exclusive club that José Mourinho (Porto 2004) could have joined had Chelsea gone all the way in the 2006/07 campaign.

• All four of the coaches involved in the 2006/07 semi-finals had already lifted the European Cup; Sir Alex Ferguson guided United to glory in 1999, Carlo Ancelotti's Milan claimed a sixth title at Old Trafford in 2003, the following year Mourinho led Porto to victory and in 2005 Liverpool, under Rafael Benítez, overcame Ancelotti's Milan in Istanbul.

• Players from 28 countries appeared in the 2006/07 semi-finals.

• Three of those countries – Chile (Mark González, Liverpool), Ivory Coast (Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou, Chelsea) and Korea Republic (Ji-Sung Park, Manchester United) – have never produced a winner.

• Twenty-one English players appeared, six more than from Italy. France (7), Brazil and the Netherlands (6), Portugal (4), Argentina and Spain (3) are the next in the list, followed by Czech Republic, Ivory Coast, Norway, Republic of Ireland and Wales (all 2). Australia, Cameroon, Chile, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Korea Republic, Nigeria, Poland, Scotland, Serbia and Ukraine (all one).

• Had Chelsea or Roma gone all the way in 2006/07, it would be the first European Cup success for London or Rome. Only five capital cities have been successful in this way: Madrid (Real Madrid CF), Belgrade (FK Crvena Zvezda), Bucharest (FC Steaua Bucuresti), Amsterdam (AFC Ajax) and Lisbon (SL Benfica).

• UEFA Champions League: All-time records
Biggest wins
7-0: Juventus v Olympiacos CFP (10.12.2003)
7-1: Manchester United FC v AS Roma (10.04.2007)
6-0: Olympique de Marseille v PFC CSKA Moskva (17.03.1993)
6-0: Leeds United AFC v Beşiktaş JK (26.09.2000)
6-0: Real Madrid CF v KRC Genk (25.09.2002)

Most goals in a game
8-3: AS Monaco FC v RC Deportivo La Coruña (05.11.2003)
7-2: Paris Saint-Germain FC v Rosenborg BK (24.10.2000)
7-2: Olympique Lyonnais v Werder Bremen (08.03.2005)
Only one team has scored more than five goals in an away game, Manchester United FC, winning 6-2 at Brøndby IF in 1998/99.

Leading scorer in a season
12: Ruud van Nistelrooy (Manchester United FC, 2002/03)
Andriy Shevchenko finished as top scorer in 2005/06 with nine goals for AC Milan.

Four goals in a match
Marco van Basten (AC Milan 4-0 IFK Göteborg, 25.11.1992)
Simone Inzaghi (S.S. Lazio 5-1 Olympique de Marseille, 14.03.2000)
Dado Pršo (AS Monaco FC 8-3 RC Deportivo La Coruña, 05.11.2003)
Ruud van Nistelrooy (Manchester United FC 4-1 AC Sparta Praha, 03.11.2004)
Andriy Shevchenko (Fenerbahçe SK 0-4 AC Milan, 23.11.2005)
Of these four-goal hauls, Dado Pršo's against Deportivo was the quickest. He scored his first goal 26 minutes into the game and his fourth just 23 minutes later.

Fastest goal in a match
10.03 secs: Roy Makaay (FC Bayern München 2-1 Real Madrid CF, 07.03.2006)
20.07 secs: Gilberto (PSV Eindoven 0-4 Arsenal FC, 25.09.2002)
20.12 secs: Alessandro Del Piero (Manchester United FC 3-2 Juventus, 01.10.1997)
21.20 secs: Clarence Seedorf (FC Schalke 04 2-2 AC Milan, 28.09.2005)
25.40 secs: Marek Kincl (Club Brugge KV 3-2 SK Rapid Wien, 02.11.2005)

Fastest hat-tricks
9 mins: Mike Newell (Blackburn Rovers FC 4-1 Rosenborg BK, 06.12.1995)
19 mins: Marco Simone (Rosenborg BK 1-4 AC Milan, 25.09.1996)
19 mins: Dado Pršo (AS Monaco FC 8-3 RC Deportivo La Coruña, 05.11.2003)
21 mins: Sigurd Rushfeldt (Rosenborg BK 3-0 Galatasaray SK, 21.10.1998)
21 mins: Simone Inzaghi (S.S. Lazio 5-1 Olympique de Marseille, 14.03.2000)

Youngest players to score
17 years, 195 days: Peter Oforiquaye (Rosenborg BK 5-1 Olympiacos CFP, 01.10.1997)
17 years, 218 days: Cesc Fabregas (Arsenal FC 5-1 Rosenborg BK, 07.12.2004)
17 years, 241 days: Martin Klein (Panathinaikos FC 2-1 AC Sparta Praha, 27.02.2002)
17 years, 353 days: Karim Benzema (Olympique Lyonnais 2-1 Rosenborg BK, 06.12.2005)
18 years, 61 days: Sammy Kuffour (FC Bayern München 2-2 FC Spartak Moskva, 02.11.1994)
18 years, 70 days: Andriy Shevchenko (FC Dynamo Kyiv 1-4 FC Bayern München, 07.12.1994)
Peter Oforiquaye became the youngest player to score, but Celestine Babayaro is still the youngest to appear, having begun RSC Anderlecht's game against FC Steaua Bucuresti on 23 November 1994, aged 16 years and 87 days.

Appearances: UEFA Champions League
Note: This list considers group stage to final only; Players listed in bold are still involved this season.
108 Raúl González (Real Madrid CF)
107 Roberto Carlos (Real Madrid CF)
104 Paolo Maldini (AC Milan)
103 David Beckham (Manchester United FC, Real Madrid CF)
103 Oliver Kahn (FC Bayern München)
98 Gary Neville (Manchester United FC)
97 Luís Figo (FC Barcelona, Real Madrid CF, FC Internazionale Milano)
95 Ryan Giggs (Manchester United FC)
95 Paul Scholes (Manchester United FC)
93 Clarence Seedorf (AFC Ajax, Real Madrid CF, AC Milan)
89 Andriy Shevchenko (FC Dynamo Kyiv, AC Milan, Chelsea FC)
85 Thierry Henry (AS Monaco FC, Arsenal FC)
85 Hasan Salihamidžić (FC Bayern München)
83 Fernando Morientes (Real Madrid CF, AS Monaco FC, Liverpool FC, Valencia CF)
83 Claude Makelele (FC Nantes Atlantique, Real Madrid CF, Chelsea FC)
81 Guti (Real Madrid CF)
81 Iván Helguera (Real Madrid CF)
81 Frank de Boer (AFC Ajax, FC Barcelona, Galatasaray SK)
80 Zinédine Zidane (Juventus, Real Madrid CF)
79 Phillip Cocu (PSV Eindhoven, FC Barcelona)
79 Alessandro Del Piero (Juventus)
78 Alessio Tacchinardi (Juventus, Villarreal CF)
78 Míchel Salgado (Real Madrid CF)
78 Iker Casillas (Real Madrid CF)
77 Ole Gunnar Solskjær (Manchester United FC)
76 Sylvain Wiltord (FC Girondins de Bordeaux, Arsenal FC, Olympique Lyonnais)

Goals: UEFA Champions League

56 Raúl González (Real Madrid CF)
49 Ruud van Nistelrooy (PSV Eindhoven, Manchester United FC, Real Madrid CF)
46 Andriy Shevchenko (FC Dynamo Kyiv, AC Milan, Chelsea FC)
42 Thierry Henry (AS Monaco FC, Arsenal FC)

Appearances: UEFA club competition

167 Paolo Maldini (AC Milan)
136 Luís Figo (Sporting, FC Barcelona, Real Madrid CF, FC Internazionale Milano)
133 Oliver Kahn (Karslruher SC, FC Bayern München)
130 Frank de Boer (AFC Ajax, FC Barcelona, Galatasaray SK)
122 Zinédine Zidane (AS Cannes, FC Girondins de Bordeaux, Juventus, Real Madrid CF)
121 Alessandro Costacurta (AC Milan)

Goals: UEFA club competition

62 Gerd Müller (FC Bayern München)
59 Andriy Shevchenko (FC Dynamo Kyiv, AC Milan, Chelsea FC)
58 Raúl González (Real Madrid CF)
56 Eusébio (Benfica)
56 Filippo Inzaghi (Parma FC, Juventus, AC Milan)
53 Ruud van Nistelrooy (PSV Eindhoven, Manchester United FC, Real Madrid CF)
50 Alfredo Di Stéfano (Real Madrid CF)
50 Thierry Henry (AS Monaco FC, Juventus, Arsenal FC)
47 Carlos Santillana (Real Madrid CF)
47 Henrik Larsson (Feyenoord, Celtic FC, FC Barcelona, Manchester United FC)

Goals: UEFA Champions League/European Champion Clubs' Cup
Note: This list considers the all-time goalscorers list in both competitions including all qualifying round matches.

56 Raúl González (Real Madrid CF)
55 Andriy Shevchenko (FC Dynamo Kyiv, AC Milan, Chelsea FC)
53 Ruud van Nistelrooy (PSV Eindhoven, Manchester United FC, Real Madrid CF)
49 Alfredo Di Stéfano (Real Madrid CF)
47 Eusébio (Benfica)
42 Thierry Henry (AS Monaco FC, Arsenal FC)

Last updated: 17.05.2007