Beginner’s guide to the UEFA Champions League

On Tuesday, Sept. 16, millions of faces will be glued to television sets as the 2014-2015 Champions League gets underway. While games officially began back at the end of June, it’s the group stage that truly signifies the start of the tournament. And that’s just one of the intricate details that can make Europe’s premiere tournament so difficult to understand for newcomers.

But never fear, because SB Nation Soccer is here to provide answers to your biggest questions about this complex, confusing, frustrating and thrilling event.

“Champions League” is shorthand for UEFA Champions League, a competition organized by the Union of European Football Associations to showcase the most talented clubs on the continent. It is the successor tournament to the European Cup, which began in 1955 as a competition amongst the champions of various European leagues.

Despite the name, the Champions League is not reserved solely for clubs that win a domestic league title. Instead, multiple clubs from various domestic associations are entered, with the number determined by UEFA’s association ranking, which measures the strength of each European league. No league can be represented by more than four teams, and most are permitted just one.

Again, despite the name, UEFA Champions League does not only include countries from within Europe. In the early stages, you’ll find teams from Israel, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, as well as clubs representing territories, such as Gibraltar, who debuted this season.

A total of 77 teams from 53 of 54 UEFA member associations entered the 2014-2015 Champions League. But by the time most people start watching, only 32 teams remain. That’s due to the fact that there are four preliminary rounds prior to the draw for the group stage.

Where a team enters the competition is based on its domestic finish, together with its association’s ranking. If a club finishes third in England, Spain or Germany, for example, they still enter directly into the group stage. But if a team tops the table in, say, Wales, they start in the first qualifying round.

While you don’t need to worry too much about the qualifying stages, since they’ve already happened, here’s a quick recap. Six champions entered in the first qualifying round, playing two-legged ties, home and away. The winners over both legs progressed to the second qualifying round, where they were joined by 31 more champions, and again played home and away. Then the winners progressed to the third qualifying round, where they were joined not only by more champions, but by the runners-up from some of Europe’s better-ranked leagues. Once more, they played over two legs, home and away and the winners went through to the playoffs.

This is when things really start to get interesting. This season, some fairly big teams -- including Arsenal, Bayer Leverkusen, Zenit Saint Petersburg, Porto, Athletic Bilbao and Napoli -- all entered at the playoff stage. UEFA’s desire to have actual champions in the Champions League meant that these teams were kept apart from potentially weaker opponents like Steaua Bucharest, APOEL or Malmö. Ultimately, Napoli were unlucky, and joined the rest of the playoff losers in being sent down to the UEFA’s secondary competition, the Europa League, the Champions League’s red-headed stepchild.

Now, nearly three months after the first qualifying round began, the tournament truly kicks off. The group stage will run from September through December, followed by the round of 16, the quarterfinals, and the semifinals. Each of these last three rounds consists of another set of two-legged, home-and-away ties, in which the winner over both games advances.

The Champions League victors and runners-up, however, will have their fate decided in a single match. This season, the final will be held on June 6, 2015, in Berlin’s Olympiastadion.

Apart from the final, the group stage is the only part of the Champions League that isn’t arranged on a two-leg, home and away knockout basis. Here the 32 teams are separated into eight groups of four. Again, a ranking system comes into play. Each team has a UEFA club coefficient, which is determined by a club’s performance in both the Champions League and Europa League over the past five seasons, as well as the strength of their domestic league. This ranks the teams from 1 (this season Real Madrid) to 32 (FF Malmö). Teams 1-8 go into Pot 1, 9-16 go into Pot 2, and so on. One team is drawn from each pot to make up a group, with the caveat that teams from the same country may not be drawn together.

There are, of course, flaws inherent in this system, the biggest of which is that it is possible for a strong team not to have played in either UEFA tournament over the past five years. For instance, this season Roma (runners up in Italy) went into Pot 4, while Liverpool (runners up in England) were dropped into Pot 3. Such rankings can create so-called “groups of death”, in which three or even all four teams look capable of advancing.

But only two of the four teams from each group will continue on to the next round. Each team plays the others home and away, for a total of six games, and league-style points are awarded: three for a win, one for a draw, zero for a loss. The teams in first and second after all games have been played go through to the round of 16; those finishing top will play those finishing second, a theoretical advantage. The team finishing third in each group drops down to the Europa League, while the bottom team goes home.

Boy, you’ll be glad you asked. Unlike in the knockout phases, where if teams are tied at the end of the two legs, the team with the most away goals advances, the group stages has a more complicated set of tiebreakers. First, only the results against teams that are level on points are considered - which can get extremely complicated when, as happened last year, three teams in one group finish with the same number of points.

If, when considering just matches played against the other teams with the same number of points, the teams are still tied, then goal difference -- again, only goal difference amongst those teams level on points -- is taken into account. But if teams remain tied, the team with the higher number of goals scored will advance. If there’s still a deadlock, away goals come into play.

Believe it or not, there are further tie-breakers if teams are level on points, goal difference, goals scored and away goals -- perhaps this occurs if the two level teams have played out scoreless draws both times they’ve met. That’s when results against the entire group are considered -- first, superior goal difference, then number of goals scored. Away goals doesn’t come into play, with the final tiebreaker being the number of coefficient points accumulated by the clubs, as well as by the club’s association, over the past five seasons.

So yes, a team might advance simply based on its ability, as well as its country’s ability, to perform well in European football. Surely that’s a better way of breaking ties rather than a squad’s ability to score away from their home soil.