The 1997–98 UEFA Champions League was the 43rd season of the UEFAChampions League, UEFA's premier club football tournament, and the sixth since its re-branding from the "European Champion Clubs' Cup" or "European Cup". The tournament was won by Real Madrid, winning for the first time in 32 years, beating 1–0 Juventus who were playing in a third consecutive final. It started a run of three victories in five seasons for the Spanish club. This season was the first to have six groups, instead of previous four, which meant that only two group runners-up qualified for the quarter finals as opposed to all the second-placed teams. It was also the first to have two qualifying rounds instead of just one. After three years of entering the UEFA Cup, champions of smaller nations returned to the Champions League. For the first time, the runners-up of eight domestic leagues entered into the competition. Borussia Dortmund, the defending champions, were eliminated in the semi-finals by eventual winners Real Madrid. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Slovakia and the Republic of Macedonia all entered their champions for the first time, while the champion of Yugoslavia returned to this competition for the first time since 1991–92 season after the UN ban was lifted.
Association team allocation
Number of teams per country as well as the starting round for each club and seeding were based on 1997 UEFA league coefficient, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 1992–93 to 1996–97.
Associations ranked 1–8 each have two participants
Associations ranked 9–48 each have one participant
Teams
55 teams entered the competition: the national champions of each of the top 48 nations in the UEFA coefficient rankings, plus the runners-up from each of the top eight nations and UEFA Champions League holders, Borussia Dortmund. The national champions of the associations ranked 1–7, plus the title holders, all received a bye to the group stage, while the national champions of the associations ranked 8–16 and the runners-up of the associations ranked 1–8 all entered in the second qualifying round. The remaining national champions from the associations ranked 17–48 entered in the first qualifying round. ;Notes
Round and draw dates
The schedule of the competition is as follows.
Qualifying rounds
First qualifying round
Second qualifying round
Losing teams qualified for the first round of the 1997–98 UEFA Cup.
Alessandro Del Piero
Thierry Henry
Serhiy Rebrov
Andy Cole
Stefan Beinlich
Oktay Derelioğlu
Emerson
Victor Ikpeba
Fernando Morientes
Sigurd Rushfeldt
Davor Šuker
Stéphane Chapuisat