2013 UEFA Champions League Final

The 2013 UEFA Champions League Final was the final match of the 2012–13 UEFA Champions League, the 58th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 21st season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League.

The match took place on Saturday, 25 May 2013, at Wembley Stadium in London, England, between German Bundesliga clubs Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich. In the first all-German Champions League final, Bayern won the match 2–1 with goals from Mario Mandžukić and man of the match Arjen Robben coming either side of an İlkay Gündoğan penalty for Dortmund.

One week later, Bayern won the 2013 DFB-Pokal and, having already won the 2013 Bundesliga, completed the Continental Treble. As a result of their Champions League win, Bayern qualified to play against Chelsea, the winners of the 2012–13 UEFA Europa League, in the 2013 UEFA Super Cup, and also earned the right to enter the semi-finals of the 2013 FIFA Club World Cup as the UEFA representative. They would eventually go on to win both competitions.

Champions League

Champions League most commonly refers to the UEFA Champions League. It may also refer to:

Association football

UEFA Champions League

The UEFA Champions League, known simply as the Champions League, is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs. It is one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world and the most prestigious club competition in European football, played by the national league champion (and, for some nations, one or more runners-up) of each UEFA national association. The final of the 2012–13 tournament was the most watched UEFA Champions League final to date, as well as the most watched annual sporting event worldwide in 2013, drawing 360 million television viewers.

Introduced in 1992, the competition replaced the European Champion Clubs' Cup, or simply European Cup, which had run since 1955, adding a group stage to the competition and allowing multiple entrants from certain countries. The pre-1992 competition was initially a straight knockout tournament open only to the champion club of each country. During the 1990s, the format was expanded, incorporating a round-robin group stage to include clubs that finished runner-up of some nations' top level league. While most of Europe's national leagues can still only enter their national league champion, Europe's strongest national leagues now provide up to four teams for the competition, and will provide up to five teams from the 2015–16 season onwards. Clubs that finish next-in-line in each nation's top level league, having not qualified for the UEFA Champions League competition, may be eligible for the next level UEFA Europa League competition.

FC Bayern Munich

Fußball-Club Bayern München e.V., commonly known as FC Bayern München (German pronunciation: [ʔɛf t͡seː ˈbaɪ̯ɐn ˈmʏnçn̩]), FCB, Bayern Munich, or FC Bayern, is a German sports club based in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It is best known for its professional football team, which plays in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German football league system, and is the most successful club in German football history, having won a record 25 national titles and 17 national cups.

FC Bayern was founded in 1900 by eleven football players led by Franz John. Although Bayern won its first national championship in 1932, the club was not selected for the Bundesliga at its inception in 1963. The club had its period of greatest success in the middle of the 1970s when, under the captaincy of Franz Beckenbauer, it won the European Cup three times in a row (1974–76). Overall, Bayern has reached ten European Cup/UEFA Champions League finals, most recently winning their fifth title in 2013 as part of a continental treble. Bayern has also won one UEFA Cup, one European Cup Winners' Cup, one UEFA Super Cup, one FIFA Club World Cup and two Intercontinental Cups, making it one of the most successful European clubs internationally. Since the formation of the Bundesliga, Bayern has been the dominant club in German football with 25 titles and has won 7 of the last 11 titles. They have traditional local rivalries with TSV 1860 München and 1. FC Nürnberg, as well as with Borussia Dortmund since the mid 1990s.

List of European Cup and UEFA Champions League finals

The UEFA Champions League is a seasonal association football competition established in 1955. The UEFA Champions League is open to the league champions of all UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) member associations (except Liechtenstein, which has no league competition), as well as to the clubs finishing from second to fourth position in the strongest leagues. Prior to the 1992–93 season, the tournament was named the European Cup. Originally, only the champions of their respective national league and the defending champion of the competition were allowed to participate. However, this was changed in 1997 to allow the runners-up of the stronger leagues to compete as well. The defending champion of the competition did not automatically qualify until the rules were changed in 2005 to allow title holders Liverpool to enter the competition.

Teams that have won the UEFA Champions League three times in a row, or five times overall, receive a multiple-winner badge. Six teams have earned this privilege: Real Madrid, Ajax, Bayern Munich, Milan, Liverpool and Barcelona. Until 2009, clubs that had earned that badge were allowed to keep the European Champion Clubs' Cup and a new one was commissioned; since 2009, the winning team each year has received a full-size replica of the trophy, while the original is retained by UEFA.