After a year’s enforced break, the UEFA Youth League is back in the starting blocks. Here’s how the competition works, which 32 clubs tackle.
Group stage, championship route, play-offs
The Youth League Champions League route is based on the men’s top flight groups and follows a similar fixture list. It kicks off with the 1st group matchday on 14 September. The group stage will be completed at the beginning of December. Click here for the match schedule.
The 32 teams are divided into eight groups. The winners of these groups will advance directly to the round of 16, while the eight runners-up in the groups will play the winners of the champions’ competition in the play-offs on 8 and 9 February, which will be decided after two knockout rounds with an initial field of 32 participants.
K.-o.-Phase and “Final Four “
The knockout phase will then be drawn on 14 February in Nyon, Switzerland, starting with the round of 16 (1/2 March 2022). The quarter-finals will follow on 15/16 March, before the four remaining clubs meet in April for a “Final Four” mini-tournament, also in Nyon. The preliminary round will be played on 22 April and the final three days later on 25 April.
The German participants – Cologne via “Meisterweg “
The DFB is sending five participants into the competition. Borussia Dortmund, 1. FC Köln, RB Leipzig, Bayern München and VfL Wolfsburg are represented. Cologne will try their luck via the championship route and face KRC Genk on 29 September and 19 October. If they progress, they will play MTK Budapest or Sparta Prague in November for a ticket to the play-offs against a group runner-up from the Champions League route.
The other four German clubs will play in groups A (Leipzig), C (Dortmund), E (Bayern) and G (Wolfsburg) of the CL path to progress.
History, title holders, cup
The title has been played in the Youth League since the 2013/14 season. FC Barcelona won the first edition and is the record winner with two titles (2014, 2018) together with Chelsea FC (2015, 2016). The other titles were won by RB Salzburg (2017, under current BVB coach Marco Rose), FC Porto (2019) and most recently Real Madrid (2020, under coach Raúl). The competition did not take place in the 2020/21 season due to the Corona pandemic. German clubs have not yet won the Youth League.
Ajax Amsterdam, Atletico Madrid, FC Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Benfica Lisbon, Juventus Turin, Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, FC Porto and Real Madrid have taken part in all eight editions of the competition so far. Only Real have reached the round of 16 eight times.
The competition is played for the trophy named after UEFA’s honorary president Lennart Johansson (1929-2019).
The Youth League is on TV here
Selected Youth League matches are broadcast in Germany by the streaming portals DAZN and blue Zoom. The European Football Union also shows selected matches via uefa.tv.
