The 2005–06 UEFA Champions League was the 51st season of UEFA's premier European club football tournament, the UEFA Champions League and the 14th since it was rebranded from the European Cup in 1992. 74 teams from 50 football associations took part, starting with the first qualifying round played on 12 July 2005. The final was played on 17 May 2006 at Stade de France, Saint-Denis between Barcelona and Arsenal. In the 18th minute, Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann became the first player to be sent off in a European Cup final. Despite the disadvantage, Sol Campbell gave the English side the lead in the 37th minute. Samuel Eto'o brought Barcelona back on level terms in the 76th minute, before Juliano Belletti scored the winning goal five minutes later. The defending champions were Liverpool and as they did not qualify by their league position, UEFA gave them special dispensation and allowed them to defend their title from the first qualifying round of the competition. They made the group stage and progressed but were eliminated by Benfica in the first knockout round. From the following season, UEFA reserved a berth in the group stage for the defending champions regardless of their league position.

Association team allocation

A total of 74 teams from 49 of the 52 UEFA member associations participated in the 2005–06 UEFA Champions League (the exception being Liechtenstein, which does not organise a domestic league, Andorra and San Marino). 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 2005–06 UEFA Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2004 UEFA country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 1999–2000 to 2003–04. Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations may have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below:

Distribution

Because the title holders, Liverpool, entered the competition in the first qualifying round rather than the group stage, the following changes to the default access list were made:

Teams

League positions of the previous season qualified via league position shown in parentheses. Liverpool qualified as title holders. (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 6 second-placed teams from countries ranked 1–6 were drawn into 8 groups of 4 teams each. Normally two teams from the same association cannot be drawn in the same group. The only exception is Liverpool because of their abnormal qualification as title holders because not having finished in the top four of the English league, Liverpool were given no "association protection" in the tournament. For the group stage, the only team from the same association they could be drawn with was Chelsea, as the rest were in the same seeding pot. The top 2 teams in each group advanced to the Champions League knock-out stage, while the third-placed teams advanced to the Round of 32 in the UEFA Cup. Tiebreakers are applied in the following order: Real Betis, Villarreal, Udinese, Thun and Artmedia Bratislava 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