1997-98 UEFA Champions League

1997–98 UEFA Champions League

The Amsterdam Arena held the final
Tournament details
Dates	23 July – 27 August 1997 (qualifying) 17 September 1997 – 20 May 1998 (competition proper)
Teams	24 (group stage) 55 (total)
Final positions
Champions	Real Madrid (7th title)
Runners-up	Juventus
Tournament statistics
Matches played	85
Goals scored	239 (2.81 per match)
Attendance	2,868,568 (33,748 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Alessandro Del Piero (10 goals)
← 1996–97 1998–99 →

The 1997–98 UEFA Champions League was the 43rd season of the UEFA Champions League, UEFA's premier club football tournament, and the sixth since its rebranding from the "European Champion Clubs' Cup" or "European Cup". The tournament was won 1–0 by Real Madrid, winning for the first time in 32 years, beating Juventus who were playing in a third consecutive final. It started a run of three victories in five seasons for the Spanish club.

This season was the first to have six groups, as opposed to four in the previous tournament, which meant that only two group runners-up qualified for the quarter finals as opposed to all the second-placed teams. It was also the first to have two qualifying rounds instead of just one. After three years of entering the UEFA Cup, champions of smaller nations returned to the Champions League. For the first time, the runners-up of eight domestic leagues (three teams: Germany (Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund as UEFA Champions League title holder); two teams: England (Newcastle United, Manchester United), France (AS Monaco, Paris Saint-Germain), Netherlands (Feyenoord, PSV Eindhoven), Italy (Juventus, Parma), Portugal (Porto, Sporting CP), Spain (Barcelona, Real Madrid) and Turkey (Beşiktaş, Galatasaray) were entered into the competition. The runners-up entered the second qualifying round, while the league winners entered directly the group stage (except for Turkey where both winner and runner-up entered the second qualifying round).