The 1995âÂÂ96 UEFA Champions League was the 41st season of UEFA's premier European club football tournament, and the fourth since its rebranding as the UEFA Champions League. The tournament was won by Juventus, who beat defending champions Ajax on penalties in the final for their first European Cup since 1985, and their second overall. It was the only Champions League title that Juventus won in the 1990s, despite reaching the next two finals, and one of only three Italian wins in the final, despite there being a Serie A club in every final for seven consecutive years from 1992 to 1998.
It was the first tournament in which three points were awarded for a win instead of two. This was also the first time that players' names appeared on the back of shirts.
24 teams entered the competition â the national champions of each of the top 24 nations in the UEFA coefficient rankings, including UEFA Champions League holders, Ajax. The national champions of the associations ranked 1âÂÂ7, plus the title holders, all received a bye to the group stage, while the national champions of the associations ranked 8âÂÂ24 entered in the qualifying round. The remaining national champions from the associations ranked 25âÂÂ47 were only allowed to participate in the UEFA Cup.
For the 1995âÂÂ96 UEFA Champions League, the associations were allocated places according to their 1995 UEFA association coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 1990âÂÂ91 to 1994âÂÂ95.
Since the title holders (Ajax) qualified for the Champions League qualifying round through their domestic league and entered the group stage automatically, their spot in the qualifying round was vacated. Due to this, as well as Yugoslavia's exclusion, the following changes to the default access list were made:
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
The schedule of the competition is as follows (all draws are held in Geneva, Switzerland).
11 teams of 16 made their debut in the UEFA Champions League group stage: AaB, Blackburn Rovers, Borussia Dortmund, Ferencváros, Grasshopper, Juventus, Legia Warsaw, Nantes, Panathinaikos, Real Madrid and Rosenborg. Panathinaikos had already played in the group stage of the 1991âÂÂ92 European Cup. AaB, Ferencvaros, Grasshopper, Legia and Rosenborg were the first teams to play in group stage from Denmark, Hungary, Switzerland, Poland and Norway respectively.