UEFA Champions League is open to the most successful footballing clubs in Europe. The season starts in mid July and the final is played in the following May. The competing clubs play for the sports most prestigious trophy - The European Champion Clubs' Cup or simply known as The European Cup.
There are several stages that make up the UEFA Champions League tournament which start with three knockout qualifying rounds after which the 16 teams who survived are joined by 16 seeded teams, these 32 teams play a group stage. The winner of each group stage and the top 8 runners up are entered into the final knockout rounds accumulating in the final in May.
Real Madrid are the real hero's of this competition having won the cup a staggering nine times, the last victory being in 2002 however, a total of 21 clubs have won the title and 12 of them have won it more than once. Manchester United are the current holders of the title after their win against Chelsea on 21st May 2008 in Moscow.
Unlike Barclays Premier League plus others, it was decided in 1992 that UEFA Champions League would have multiple sponsors. The main current sponsors of the tournament are MasterCard, Sony, Ford, Vodafone and Heineken. Pro Evolution Soccer belonging to Konami and Adidas are secondary sponsors for this tournament.
At present odds are being given for the following teams: Barcelona, Chelsea, Man Utd, Inter Milan, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Roma, Lyon, Atletico Madrid, Villarreal, Panathinaikos, FC Porto, Sporting Lisbon.
If you’re a betting person but like to play safe you’ll probably want to place a bet on the favourite Barcelona at 4/1 however, with odds of 100/1, if the rank outsider Lisbon did take home the cup, you could be laughing all the way to the bank.
Odds stated were gathered on 17th December 2008
