UEFA Super Cup

The UEFA Super Cup is an annual football match organized by UEFA and contested by the reigning champions of the two main European club competitions, the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League. It takes place at the start of the domestic season, in mid-August, normally on a Tuesday.

From 1972 to 1999, the UEFA Super Cup was contested between the winners of the European Cup/UEFA Champions League and the winners of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup. After the discontinuation of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, it has been contested by the winners of the UEFA Champions League and the winners of the UEFA Cup, which was renamed the UEFA Europa League in 2009.

The current holders are Spanish club Barcelona, who won 5–4 against Sevilla in 2015. The most successful teams in the competition are Barcelona and Italian side Milan, who have each won the trophy five times.

History

The European Super Cup was created in 1971 by Anton Witkamp, a reporter and later sports editor of Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. The idea came to him in a time when Dutch total football was Europe's finest and Dutch football clubs were living their golden era (especially Ajax). Witkamp was looking for something new to definitely decide which was the best team in Europe and also to further test Ajax's legendary team, led by their star player Johan Cruyff. It was then proposed that the winner of the European Cup would face the winner of the Cup Winners' Cup.

Super cup

A super cup is a competition, usually but not exclusively in association football, which often forms the "curtain-raiser" to a season. It is played by two competition winners of the previous season. On a national level by the knock-out cup winner and the league winner. There are also continental super cups, like the UEFA Super Cup in football, which puts together two UEFA competition winners. Sometimes these are two-legged ties, with a match played at each side's stadium, but increasingly they are one-off fixtures at a neutral venue, such as a national stadium. Some Super Cups have even been staged in venues outside their home country, such as the Italian, French and Turkish games.

If the league champions are also the national cup winners, the winners may play a runner-up in one competition.

Football

National Supercups

The following nations have an active super cup competition:

Albanian Supercup

Algerian Super Cup

Andorran Supercup

Argentinian Super Cup

Armenian Supercup

Azerbaijan Supercup

Manchester United F.C.

Manchester United Football Club is a professional football club based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, that competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English football. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.

Manchester United have won 20 league titles, the most of any English club, 11 FA Cups, four League Cups and a record 20 FA Community Shields. The club has also won three European Cups, one UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, one UEFA Super Cup, one Intercontinental Cup and one FIFA Club World Cup. In 1998–99, the club became the first in the history of English football to achieve the treble of the Premier League, the FA Cup and the UEFA Champions League.

The 1958 Munich air disaster claimed the lives of eight players. In 1968, under the management of Matt Busby, Manchester United became the first English football club to win the European Cup. Alex Ferguson won 38 trophies, including 13 Premier League titles, 5 FA Cups and 2 UEFA Champions Leagues, between 1986 and 2013, when he announced his retirement. Louis van Gaal is the club's current manager after Ferguson's successor David Moyes was sacked after only 10 months in charge.

Real Madrid C.F.

Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (Spanish pronunciation: [reˈal maˈðɾið ˈkluβ ðe ˈfuðβol]; Royal Madrid Football Club), commonly known as Real Madrid, or simply as Real, is a professional football club based in Madrid, Spain.

Founded in 1902 as Madrid Football Club, the team has traditionally worn a white home kit since inception. The word Real is Spanish for Royal and was bestowed to the club by King Alfonso XIII in 1920 together with the royal crown in the emblem. The team has played its home matches in the 81,044-capacity Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in downtown Madrid since 1947. Unlike most European sporting entities, Real Madrid's members (socios) have owned and operated the club throughout its history.

The club is the most valuable sports team in the world, worth €2.5 billion ($3.4 billion) and the world's highest-earning football club for 2013–14, with an annual revenue of €549.5 million. The club is one of the most widely supported teams in the world. Real Madrid is one of three founding members of the Primera División that have never been relegated from the top division, along with Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona. The club holds many long-standing rivalries, most notably El Clásico with Barcelona and the El Derbi madrileño with Atlético Madrid.

UEFA

The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA, /juːˈeɪfə/; French: Union des Associations Européennes de Football;German: Vereinigung Europäischer Fußballverbände) is the administrative body for association football in Europe, although several member states are primarily or entirely located in Asia. It is one of six continental confederations of world football's governing body FIFA. UEFA consists of 54 national association members.

UEFA represents the national football associations of Europe, runs nation and club competitions including the UEFA European Championship, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and UEFA Super Cup, and controls the prize money, regulations, and media rights to those competitions.

Until 1959 the main headquarters were located in Paris, and later in Bern. In 1995, UEFA headquarters transferred to Nyon, Switzerland. Henri Delaunay was the first general secretary and Ebbe Schwartz the first president. The last elected president was former French footballer Michel Platini, however he is currently suspended, due to the fact that he has been banned from football for 8 years. Angel Villar Llona is the current Acting President.