Its Time for the Champions League !!

The UEFA Champions League, which evolved from the European Champion Clubs' Cup, is a seasonal club football competition organised by UEFA since 1992 ( for the most successful football clubs in Europe. The prize, the European Champion Clubs' Cup (more commonly known as the European Cup), is one of the most prestigious club trophies in the sport.

The tournament consists of several stages. In the present format it begins in mid-July with three preliminary knockout qualifying rounds. The 16 surviving teams join 16 seeded teams in a group stage. Eight group winners and eight runners-up enter the final knockout rounds, which end with the final match in May. Previously only the champions of their respective national league could participate in the competition; however, this was changed in 1997 to allow the runners-up of the stronger leagues to compete as well.

The title has been held by 21 different clubs, 12 of which have won the title more than once. The all-time record-holder is Real Madrid with their nine wins.

The UEFA Champions league is open to the league champions of all UEFA member associations (except Liechtenstein, which has no league competition), as well as to the clubs finishing from second to fourth position in the strongest leagues. Since January 2007 the two lowest-ranked league competitions (currently the Andorra and San Marino leagues) can also represent their domestic champions in the Champions League.

The number of places in the competition depends on the association's rank in the UEFA coefficients table:

* associations ranked 1 to 3 have four positions,
* associations ranked 4 to 6 have three positions,
* associations ranked 7 to 15 have two positions,
* associations ranked 16 or lower have one position.

Champions League 2008-09 Groups

Group A

Bordeaux
CFR Cluj-Napoca
Chelsea
Roma

Group B

Anorthosis Famagusta
Inter Milan
Panathinaikos
Werder Bremen

Group C

Barcelona
Basel
Shakhtar Donetsk
Sporting Lisbon

Group D

Atletico Madrid
Liverpool
Marseille
PSV Eindhoven

Group E

AaB Aalborg
Celtic
Man Utd
Villarreal

Group F

Bayern Munich
Fiorentina
Lyon
Steaua Bucharest

Group G

Arsenal
Dynamo Kiev
FC Porto
Fenerbahce

Group H

BATE
Juventus
Real Madrid
Zenit St Petersburg

FIXTURES

Group stage

Matchday 1 : 16 - 17 September 2008
Matchday 2 : 30 Sep - 01 Oct 2008
Matchday 3 : 21 - 22 October 2008
Matchday 4 : 04 - 05 November 2008
Matchday 5 : 25 - 26 November 2008
Matchday 6 : 09 - 10 December 2008

Final Phase

First knockout : 24 - 25 February 2009,10 - 11 March 2009
Quarter-finals : 07 - 08 April 2009,14 - 15 April 2009
Semi-finals : 28 - 29 April 2009,05 - 06 May 2009
Final : 27 May 2009

The Only Bad part about this, all the matches are live only on TEN Sports, so if you are going to watch it live, be ready for some partial commentary.. Dunno why noone gives credit to clubs other than which play in england.

So lets Hope Liverpool does great in this year's competition as well.

Cheers