The 2017–18 UEFA Women's Champions League was the 17th season of the European women's club football championship organised by UEFA, and the ninth since being rebranded as the UEFA Women's Champions League.
In the final, Lyon defeated Wolfsburg to win a record fifth title, and also became the first team to win three titles in a row.[3]
Association team allocation
A maximum of 68 teams from 55 UEFA member associations were eligible to participate in the 2017–18 UEFA Women's Champions League. The association ranking based on the UEFA league coefficient for women is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:[4]
Associations 1–12 each have two teams qualify.
All other associations, should they enter, each have one team qualify.
The winners of the 2016–17 UEFA Women's Champions League are given an additional entry if they do not qualify for the 2017–18 UEFA Women's Champions League through their domestic league. Since the title holders Lyon qualified through their domestic league, the additional entry for the Champions League title holders was not necessary for this season.
Association ranking
For the 2017–18 UEFA Women's Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2016 UEFA league coefficients for women, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2011–12 to 2015–16.[5]
(NR) – No rank (association did not enter in the five seasons used for computing coefficients)
Distribution
The format of the competition remained unchanged from previous years, starting from the qualifying round (played as mini-tournaments with four teams in each group), followed by the knockout phase starting from the round of 32 (played as home-and-away two-legged ties except for the one-match final).
Unlike the men's Champions League, not every association enters a team, and so the exact number of teams entering in each round (qualifying round and round of 32) can not be determined until the full entry list is known. In general, the title holders, the champions of the top 12 associations, plus the runners-up of highest-ranked associations (exact number depending on the number of entries) receive a bye to the round of 32. All other teams (runners-up of lowest-ranked associations plus champions of associations starting from 13th) enter the qualifying round, with the group winners plus a maximum of two best runners-up advancing to the round of 32.[6]
Teams
A record total of 61 teams from 49 associations entered this season's competition.[7] Two associations had no league as of 2016–17 (Liechtenstein, San Marino). Andorra's league was not played eleven-a-side. The champions of Armenia (Yerevan LH), Azerbaijan (Gabala) and Gibraltar (Lincoln Red Imps) did not enter. Georgia entered a team for the first time since 2010–11, while Luxembourg returned after a one-year absence.
Among the entrants, 21 teams entered the round of 32: the champions and runners-up from associations 1–9 (including title holders Lyon) and the champions from associations 10–12. The remaining 40 teams entered the qualifying round: the runners-up from associations 10–12 and the champions from the 37 associations ranked 13 or lower.[8]
Legend
TH: Women's Champions League title holders
CH: Domestic league champions
RU: Domestic league runners-up
Round of 32 (Champions from associations 1–12 + Runners-up from associations 1–9)
Switzerland (SUI): The Swiss champions FC Neunkirch announced their withdrawal from the league after the season, and so the berth was given to the runners-up Zürich.[47]
Round and draw dates
UEFA has scheduled the competition as follows (all draws are held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland).[48]
The draw of the qualifying round was held on 23 June 2017, 13:30 CEST, at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.[51][52] The 40 teams were allocated into four seeding positions based on their UEFA club coefficients at the beginning of the season.[53] They were drawn into ten groups of four containing one team from each of the four seeding positions. First, the ten teams which were pre-selected as hosts were drawn from their own designated pot and allocated to their respective group as per their seeding positions. Next, the remaining 30 teams were drawn from their respective pot which were allocated according to their seeding positions.[7]
In each group, teams played against each other in a round-robin mini-tournament at the pre-selected hosts. The ten group winners and the runners-up with the best record against the teams finishing first and third in their group advanced to the round of 32 to join the 21 teams which received a bye.
The matches were played on 22, 25 and 28 August 2017.
Tiebreakers
Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 14.01 and 14.02):[4]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams have the same number of points, and they met in the last round of the group and are tied after applying all criteria above (not used if more than two teams have the same number of points, or if their rankings are not relevant for qualification for the next stage);
Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
To determine the best runner-up, the results against the teams in fourth place were discarded. The following criteria were applied (Regulations Article 14.03):[4]
To determine the best second-placed team from the qualifying round which advanced to the knockout phase, only the results of the second-placed teams against the first and third-placed teams in their group were taken into account, while results against the fourth-placed team were not included. As a result, two matches played by each second-placed team counted for the purposes of determining the ranking.
In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final. If the aggregate score was tied after full time of the second leg, the away goals rule was used to decide the winners. If still tied, extra time is played. The away goals rule was again used after extra time, i.e. if there are goals scored during extra time and the aggregate score was still tied after extra time, the away team of the second leg advanced by virtue of more away goals scored. If no goals were scored during extra time, the match was decided by penalty shoot-out. In the final, which was played as a single match, if the score was tied after full time, extra time was played, followed by penalty shoot-out if the score was still tied after extra time.[4]
The mechanism of the draws for each round is as follows:
In the draw for the round of 32, the sixteen teams with the highest UEFA club coefficients were seeded (with the title holders being the automatic top seed),[54] and the other sixteen teams are unseeded. The seeded teams are drawn against the unseeded teams, with the seeded teams hosting the second leg. Teams from the same association or the same qualifying round group cannot be drawn against each other.
In the draw for the round of 16, the eight teams with the highest UEFA club coefficients are seeded (with the title holders being the automatic top seed should they qualify),[54] and the other eight teams are unseeded. The seeded teams are drawn against the unseeded teams, with the order of legs decided by draw. Teams from the same association cannot be drawn against each other.
In the draws for the quarter-finals and semi-finals, there are no seedings, and teams from the same association can be drawn against each other. As the draws for the quarter-finals and semi-finals are held together before the quarter-finals are played, the identity of the teams in the semi-finals are not known at the time of the draw. A draw is also held to determine the "home" team for the final (for administrative purposes as it is played at a neutral venue).
The draw for the semi-finals was held on 24 November 2017, 13:30 CET (together with the quarter-final draw), at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.[59]
The first legs were played on 22 April, and the second legs on 29 April 2018.
The final was played at the Valeriy Lobanovskyi Dynamo Stadium in Kyiv on 24 May 2018. The "home" team for the final (for administrative purposes) was determined by an additional draw held after the quarter-final and semi-final draws.[59]