Tournament details | |
---|---|
Dates | 10 – 24 August 1994 (qualifying) 14 September 1994 – 24 May 1995 (competition proper) |
Teams | 16 (group stage) 24 (total) |
Final positions | |
Champions | Ajax (4th title) |
Runners-up | Milan |
Tournament statistics | |
Matches played | 61 |
Goals scored | 140 (2.3 per match) |
Attendance | 2,328,515 (38,172 per match) |
Top scorer(s) |
George Weah (7 goals) |
The 1994–95 UEFA Champions League was the 40th edition of UEFA's premier European club football tournament, and the third since its rebranding as the UEFA Champions League. The tournament was won by Ajax of the Netherlands with a late goal in the final against defending champions Milan of Italy. Ajax won the competition without losing a game, either in the group or the knock-out stage in winning the title for the first time since 1973.
Compared to the previous edition of the European Cup, radical changes were made to the format of the tournament, due to a recently expired contract which bound UEFA to the EBU for the transmission of the final, and this gave occasion for a general review of the format which attracted the interest of new and financially well-off private television companies. This year included four groups of four teams each in the group stage, up from two groups of four teams each in 1993–94. It was also the first year in which eight teams advanced to the knock-out stage and the first of three years in which champions of smaller nations entered the UEFA Cup instead of the Champions League. It was also the first time that this competition was known as UEFA Champions League from the first to the last match of the competition, the two previous seasons, the UEFA Champions League involved the round(s) between the round of 16 and the final of the European Champions Cup.
Yugoslavia was unable to participate for the second edition in a row due to the UN economic sanctions.
10 teams of 16 made their UEFA Champions League group stage debut: AEK Athens, Ajax, Bayern Munich, Benfica, Casino Salzburg, Dynamo Kyiv, Hajduk Split, Manchester United, Paris Saint-Germain and Steaua București. Two of these teams, Benfica and Dynamo Kyiv, had previously contested the 1991-92 European Cup group stage.