UEFA Youth League · History

The UEFA Youth League is the European club competition for under-19 teams, organised by UEFA since the 2013-14 season. UEFA announced it in a media release dated 7 December 2012. It was created as the continental showcase for academies: in its first edition the youth sides of the 32 clubs that had qualified for the Champions League group stage took part. Since then it has grown in size and changed format, and its finals are played in Switzerland, close to UEFA's headquarters.

Origins and launch

The tournament had a trial run. In May 2010 UEFA organised the “UEFA Under-18 Challenge”, a one-off match between the youth teams of Bayern Munich and Internazionale, which the Italian side won 2-0. After the December 2012 announcement, the competition kicked off in September 2013. At the time, British media described it as UEFA's official answer to the NextGen Series, a privately run youth tournament held in previous years.

A format modelled on the Champions League

In the first two editions the group stage mirrored the Champions League: the same eight groups and the same fixtures as the senior teams, with the youth matches played on the same dates. The eight group winners and eight runners-up went into a single-leg knockout phase, with the semi-finals and final staged at a neutral venue. In 2015-16 the tournament expanded from 32 to 64 teams by adding a second route, the Domestic Champions Path, open to the national youth champions of the top 32 associations, who played their own preliminary rounds before meeting the clubs from the Champions League path. The 2020-21 edition was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The league phase from 2024-25

The overhaul of UEFA's club competitions reached the Youth League in 2024-25. The Champions League path became a 36-team league phase that mirrors the first six matchdays of the senior competition, with the top 22 going through. The Domestic Champions Path was extended to three rounds, and the clubs that survive it face the teams ranked from 7th to 22nd in the league phase in play-off ties, while the top six wait in the next round. The regulations set a birth-year cut-off for every season and allow a small number of slightly older players on the squad list.

Finals in Switzerland

The semi-finals and the final have almost always been played at the Colovray stadium in Nyon, next to UEFA's headquarters. There have been two exceptions: the 2023 final moved to the Stade de Genève in Geneva, and the 2026 final was held at the Stade de la Tuilière in Lausanne.

Winners season by season

FC Barcelona won the first final in 2014, beating Benfica 3-0. Chelsea defeated Shakhtar Donetsk in 2015 (3-2) and Paris Saint-Germain in 2016 (2-1), and Red Bull Salzburg beat Benfica in 2017 (2-1). Barcelona regained the trophy in 2018 against Chelsea (3-0), and Porto denied the London club again in 2019 (3-1). Real Madrid won their first title in 2020 against Benfica (3-2). After the year without a tournament, Benfica made amends in 2022 with a 6-0 win over Salzburg. In 2023 AZ Alkmaar beat Hajduk Split 5-0 in Geneva, and in 2024 Olympiacos defeated Milan 3-0.

Barcelona and Real Madrid

On 28 April 2025 Barcelona beat Trabzonspor 4-1 in Nyon to become the first club to win three titles (2014, 2018 and 2025). Trabzonspor were the first Turkish side to reach the final. A year later, on 20 April 2026, Real Madrid won their second title against Club Brugge, the first Belgian finalists, in Lausanne: 1-1 at full time and 4-2 in the shoot-out, the first final in the competition decided on penalties. Goalkeeper Javier Navarro saved two kicks and Diego Aguado scored the winning penalty. With that title, Spanish clubs had won five of the twelve finals played between 2014 and 2026.