The 2004–05 UEFA Champions League was the 50th season of UEFA's premier European club football tournament, and the 13th since it was rebranded as the UEFA Champions League in 1992. The competition was won by Liverpool, who beat Milan on penalties in the final, having come back from 3–0 down at half-time. Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard was named as UEFA's Footballer of the Year for his key role in the final and throughout the Champions League season. The final, played at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey, is often regarded as one of the best in the history of the tournament. As it was their fifth European Cup title, Liverpool were awarded the trophy permanently, and received the UEFA Badge of Honour. A new trophy was made for the 2005–06 season. As winners of the competition, Liverpool went on to represent UEFA at the 2005 FIFA Club World Championship. Porto were the defending champions, but were eliminated by Milan's cross-city rival Internazionale in the first knockout round.

Association team allocation

A total of 72 teams from 48 of the 52 UEFA member associations participated in the 2004–05 UEFA Champions League (the exception being Liechtenstein, which does not organise a domestic league, Andorra and San Marino). Kazakhstan also did not participate this year as none of their clubs were able to obtain UEFA license. The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:

Association ranking

For the 2004–05 UEFA Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2003 UEFA country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 1998–1999 to 2002–03. Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations may have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below:

Distribution

Since the title holders (Porto) qualified for the Champions League group stage through their domestic league, and the group stage spot reserved for the title holders is vacated, while no team from Kazakhstan was admitted, the following changes to the default access list are made:

Teams

League positions of the previous season shown in parentheses (TH: Champions League title holders).

Round and draw dates

The schedule of the competition is as follows (all draws are held at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, unless stated otherwise).

Qualifying rounds

First qualifying round

Second qualifying round

Third qualifying round

Group stage

16 winners from the third qualifying round, 10 champions from countries ranked 1–10, and six second-placed teams from countries ranked 1–6 were drawn into eight groups of four teams each. The top two teams in each group will advance to the Champions League play-offs, while the third-placed teams will advance to the third round of the UEFA Cup. Tiebreakers, if necessary, are applied in the following order: Maccabi Tel Aviv made their debut appearance in the group stage.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Knockout phase

Bracket

Round of 16

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Statistics

Statistics exclude qualifying rounds.

Top goalscorers