UEFA Champions League

The UEFA Champions League (formerly named but still often called the European Cup) is an annual club football competition organized by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for the most successful football clubs in Europe. The prize, the European Champion Clubs' Cup, is considered the most prestigious club trophy in the sport.
The tournament was inaugurated in 1955, at the suggestion of the French sports journalist and L'Équipe editor Gabriel Hanot,[1] as a continental competition for winners of the European national football leagues, under the name of European Cup. In the 1992–93 season, the tournament was renamed to UEFA Champions League and, since then, the competing teams have been the top performing domestic teams of Europe, even though some teams have never been league championships in their respective countries. The UEFA Champions League is not to be confused with the UEFA Cup, the secondary championship for European club teams, nor with the now defunct Cup Winners' Cup. The winner of the tournament qualified for the also defunct Intercontinental Cup (against the winner of the Copa Libertadores of South America), played yearly between 1960 and 2004.
The tournament consists of several stages and begins with three preliminary knockout qualifying rounds. Different teams start in different rounds, according to their position in domestic league and the UEFA coefficients of their league, while the sixteen top ranked teams spread across the biggest domestic leagues qualify directly.
In the subsequent preliminary round, participating teams are paired, with aggregate winners proceeding into the next round. Qualifying rounds span from mid-July to late August. The losers of the third qualifying round are transferred to the UEFA Cup, while the sixteen winners of the final qualifying round are joined by the sixteen teams who have qualified directly, to participate in the group stage.
Teams are drawn into eight groups of four teams, each team playing every other team in the group twice (home and away). The group stage is played between mid-September and early December. The teams finishing third in their groups are transferred to the UEFA Cup, while the top two teams from every group qualify for the next round. Here the sixteen remaining teams take part in the knock-out stage, which starts in late February and ends with the final match in May.
All qualifying round and knock-out ties are two-legged, with each team hosting one match. The team which scores the greater aggregate number of goals qualifies for the next round. The away goals rule applies. Extra time and penalty kicks are used to determine the winner, if necessary. An exception is the final, which is a single match played at a predetermined venue.
The draws are currently structured to ensure that clubs representing the same national association cannot play each other until the quarter-finals. In addition, seeding of the teams according to their UEFA coefficients is used. The competition system has been undergoing changes since the 1991/92 season (see history). The current system was adopted in 2003.
The current holder of the UEFA Champions League trophy is F.C. Barcelona, who beat Arsenal F.C. 2-1 at the Stade de France, in St-Denis, Paris, on 17 May 2006. Barça, however will not be able to retain the title after being defeated in the first knock-out stage by Liverpool F.C., the 2005 champions.
The final of the 2006–07 season will be played at the Olympic Stadium, Athens, Greece, on 23 May 2007

Calcio Serie A

Serie A is the top division of the Italian Football League, the highest football league in Italy. Italian mobile phone company TIM is the main sponsor, so the official name is Serie A TIM.

Bundesliga

The Bundesliga (plural: -ligen) (Federal League, meaning nation-wide league) is the name for the premier league of any sport in Germany or Austria. Used on its own, Bundesliga usually refers to Germany's highest football league.
Most often, German champions and Austrian champions are determined by a team winning their Bundesliga regular season organized as a round-robin tournament. Each participating team plays two games (one at home, one away) against each of the other teams in the league. Points are earned from match results (for example, in the football Bundesliga, a team which wins a match receives 3 points, with teams receiving 1 point each for a draw) and the team with the most points at the end of the season wins the championship without any further playoffs or a final.
In Germany and Austria the Bundesligen are the elite sporting competitions (leagues) in a given sport while, depending on the sport, the second division may be known as the 2nd Bundesliga, or alternatively as a Regionalliga (or regional league).

La Liga

Liga de Fútbol Profesional (Professional Football League), commonly known as La Liga, is the professional football league in Spain. It is widely regarded as one of the best leagues in the world.
Nine clubs have been crowned Campeones de Liga. Since the 1950s, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have dominated the competition. The former have been champions 29 times while the latter have won it on 18 occasions. However during the 1930s and 1940s and in more recent seasons, La Liga has been more competitive. Other winners include Valencia CF, Sevilla FC, Atlético Madrid, Deportivo de La Coruña, Athletic Bilbao, Real Sociedad and Real Betis. La Liga also boasts the two most successful teams in European competition history in Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. In 2005/06 FC Barcelona won the UEFA Champions League and Sevilla FC won the UEFA Cup. La Liga became the first league to do the European "double" since 1997. [1]
La Liga is currently first in the UEFA rankings of European leagues based on their performances in European competitions over a five year period, ahead of Serie A in second and Premier League in third [2] The 2005–06 average attendance of 29,029 for league matches is the sixth highest of any domestic professional sports league in the world. In professional football leagues La Liga was third highest behind the Bundesliga in first and the Premier League in second.

English Premier League

The Premier League (often referred to as the Barclays Premiership for sponsorship reasons or as the Barclays English Premier League internationally) is a league competition for football clubs located at the top of the English football league system (above The Football League), making it England's primary football competition. It is the world's most watched sporting league, and the most lucrative football league.
The FA Premier League (as it was then known) was formed in 1992 from the clubs in the top division of The Football League, and is currently contested by twenty clubs. In a total of fourteen seasons, the title has been won by only four teams: Arsenal, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea and Manchester United. Of these, the most successful is Manchester United, who have won the title eight times and are the only team to have won the title three consecutive times. The current Premier League champions are Chelsea, who won their second consecutive title in the 2005–06 season.
The FA Women's Premier League, more specifically the National Division, is the Premiership's female coun Premier League
terpart, as most of its clubs are affiliated with Premiership and Football League sides; however, the league is semi-professional and has a much lower profile than the men's game even within its national boundaries.