European Cup 1991–92
| Tournament details | |
|---|---|
| Dates | 18 September 1991 – 20 May 1992 |
| Teams | 32 |
| Final positions | |
| Champions |
 Barcelona (1st title)
|
| Runners-up |
 Sampdoria
|
| Tournament statistics | |
| Matches played | 73 |
| Goals scored | 192 (2.63 per match) |
| Top scorer(s) |
 Sergei Yuran Jean-Pierre Papin(7 goals each) |
The 1991–92 season of the European Cup football club tournament was won for the first time by Barcelona after extra time in the final against Sampdoria, the first victory in the tournament by a team from Spain since 1966. The winning goal was scored by Ronald Koeman with a free kick. This was the last tournament before the competition was re-branded as the UEFA Champions League. It was the first to have a group stage involving the eight second-round winners split into two groups, and the winner of each one met in the final. In addition, it was the last time an East Germany team competed in European Cup until RB Leipzig's qualification for the 2017–18 UEFA Champions League.
This tournament also marked the first appearance of English clubs after a six-year absence resulting from the ban they received following the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985. They would have returned one year earlier had any club other than Liverpool won the 1990 Football League championship, but Liverpool were unable to participate in the 1990–91 competition because they had been banned for an additional year beyond the five-year ban to which all English clubs had been subjected. Arsenal represented England this season and reached the second round.
The previous season's champions, Red Star Belgrade, did not have an opportunity to play at their own ground because of war in the former Yugoslavia, thereby reducing their chances of defending their title. Red Star themselves were eliminated in the group stage. It was also the final season in which the clubs from that country were able to participate in any European football competition. While the clubs from some other former Yugoslav republics were allowed to compete as early as in the 1993–94 season, due to UN embargo it was only in the 1997–98 season when the clubs from Federal Republic of Yugoslavia returned to the European football elite.
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