50 free Champions League trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The UEFA Champions League is the biggest club competition in football, and seventy years of it have produced an enormous amount of trivia. This quiz starts with L'Équipe's idea in 1955 and Real Madrid's five straight titles, runs through the Lisbon Lions, Clough's Forest, the Heysel ban and the 1992 rebrand, and covers the great finals: Hampden 1960, Camp Nou 1999, Zidane's volley, the Miracle of Istanbul, Drogba in Munich and PSG's 5-0. There are questions on the anthem, the starball, the trophy, the records held by Cristiano Ronaldo, Paco Gento, Carlo Ancelotti and Roy Makaay, and the 36-team league phase. About a third are easy for anyone who watches on Tuesday nights, a third are medium and the rest are for people who remember who Steaua beat. Every answer is checked against the competition's reference and records pages.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Under what name was the Champions League introduced in 1955?
The European Champion Clubs' Cup
It was a straight knockout for domestic league champions only until the 1990s.
Q 02The editor of which French newspaper, Gabriel Hanot, proposed the creation of the European Cup?
L'Équipe
He was inspired by reports of the 1948 South American Championship of Champions.
Q 03In what year did the competition take on the name UEFA Champions League?
1992
A round-robin group stage had been added in 1991, and multiple entrants per country were allowed from 1997-98.
Q 04How many European Cup/Champions League titles had Real Madrid won by the end of 2025?
15
They are also the only club to win it five times in a row, taking the first five editions.
Q 05Whom did Real Madrid beat 4-3 in the inaugural 1956 final at the Parc des Princes?
Stade de Reims
Alfredo Di Stéfano and Marquitos scored, and Héctor Rial got two, as Madrid came from behind.
Q 06The 1960 final, the highest-scoring ever, saw Real Madrid beat which team 7-3 at Hampden Park?
Eintracht Frankfurt
Ferenc Puskás scored four and Alfredo Di Stéfano a hat-trick.
Q 07Which club ended Real Madrid's five-title run by knocking them out in the 1960-61 first round?
Barcelona
Barcelona then lost the final 3-2 to Benfica; the trophy left Iberia for the first time only in 1963.
Q 08Which club in 1967 became the first British winner, with a team all born within 30 miles of Glasgow?
Celtic
Jock Stein's "Lisbon Lions" beat Inter Milan 2-1.
Q 09Which team was the first English club to win the European Cup, beating Benfica 4-1 in 1968?
Manchester United
It was ten years after the Munich air disaster; their next win came in the 1999 comeback final.
Q 10Which two clubs each won three titles in a row in the 1970s?
Ajax and Bayern Munich
Ajax won 1971-73 and Bayern 1974-76.
Q 11Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest won back-to-back European Cups in which years?
1979 and 1980
Forest remain the only club with more European Cups (two) than domestic league titles (one).
Q 12Why were English clubs banned from European competition for five years from 1985?
The Heysel Stadium disaster
Liverpool, involved in the 1985 final, were banned for six years.
Q 13Which Romanian club won the European Cup in 1986?
Steaua București
Porto (1987) and PSV Eindhoven (1988) followed during the English ban.
Q 21Which manager has won the competition a record five times?
Carlo Ancelotti
Twice with Milan and three times with Real Madrid, most recently in 2023-24.
Q 22Who scored the fastest goal in the competition's history, after 10.12 seconds, in 2007?
Roy Makaay
He struck for Bayern Munich against Real Madrid.
Q 23The 2005 final in Istanbul saw Liverpool come back from 3-0 down at half-time against which team?
AC Milan
Gerrard, Šmicer and Xabi Alonso scored in six minutes and Liverpool won on penalties.
Q 14Which club won the last Champions League open only to domestic champions, in 1996-97?
Borussia Dortmund
From the next season, several countries could enter multiple teams.
Q 15The Champions League anthem, written by Tony Britten in 1992, is an adaptation of which Handel work?
Zadok the Priest
The Royal Philharmonic recorded it, and it plays as the teams line up before every match.
Q 16What is the name of the Champions League's logo, created by Design Bridge in 1991?
The starball
By 1999 it reportedly had a 94 percent recognition rate among fans.
Q 17How much does the Champions League trophy in use since 1967 weigh?
11 kg
Bern jeweller Jürg Stadelmann designed the 74 cm silver cup after Real Madrid were given the original permanently in 1966.
Q 18Before 2009, a club kept the Champions League trophy by winning it three times in a row or how many times overall?
Five
The rule applied from 1968-69 until the 2008-09 season.
Q 19Who is the all-time top scorer in the competition with 140 goals?
Cristiano Ronaldo
He scored them between 2003 and 2022 for three clubs in England, Spain and Italy.
Q 20Which two players share the record of eight appearances in finals?
Paco Gento and Paolo Maldini
Gento's were all for Real Madrid between 1956 and 1966; Maldini's all for Milan between 1989 and 2007.
Q 24Which two substitutes scored the 1999 winners' injury-time goals to beat Bayern Munich in the final?
Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjær
The win at Camp Nou completed United's treble.
Q 25Zinedine Zidane's famous volley won the 2002 final at Hampden Park against which German club?
Bayer Leverkusen
It was Real Madrid's ninth European Cup and Leverkusen's first final.
Q 26Which club became the first from London to win the Champions League, beating Bayern on penalties in 2012?
Chelsea
Didier Drogba equalized late and Petr Čech saved Arjen Robben's extra-time penalty.
Q 27Who scored a penalty after just 106 seconds of the 2019 final against Tottenham?
Mohamed Salah
Origi added a second late on for Liverpool's sixth title.
Q 28Which club won the 2025 final 5-0, the biggest margin ever in a final?
Paris Saint-Germain
It was PSG's first European Cup and only the second by a French club, after Marseille in 1993, and it completed a domestic-and-European treble.
Q 29How many teams take part in the league phase introduced in 2024-25?
36
Each plays eight different opponents in a single Swiss-style table instead of groups of four.
Q 30Which two clubs from outside the "Big Five" leagues have reached the final since the 1992 rebrand?
Porto and Ajax
Ajax won in 1995 and lost in 1996; Porto won in 2004 under José Mourinho.