Maribor

Maribor (pronounced [ˈmaːɾibɔɾ]; also known by other alternative names) is the second-largest city in Slovenia with about 96,000 inhabitants in 2015. It is also the largest city of the traditional region of Lower Styria and the seat of the City Municipality of Maribor.

Name

Maribor was attested in historical sources as Marpurch circa 1145 (and later as Marchburch, Marburc, and Marchpurch), and is a compound of Middle High German march 'march (borderland)' + burc 'fortress'. In modern times, the town's German name was Marburg an der Drau (literally, 'Marburg on the Drava River'). The Slovene name Maribor is an artificial Slovenized creation, coined by Stanko Vraz in 1836. Vraz created the name in the spirit of Illyrianism by analogy with the name Brandenburg (cf. Lower Sorbian Bramborska). Locally, the town is known in Slovene as Marprk or Marprog. In addition to its Slovene and German names, the city is also known as Marburgum in Latin and Marburgo in Italian.

History

Mediaeval and early modern history

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.

2017–18 UEFA Champions League

The 2017–18 UEFA Champions League will be the 63rd season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 26th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League.

Association team allocation

A total of 77, 78 or 79 teams from 53 of the 54 UEFA member associations are expected to participate in the 2017–18 UEFA Champions League (the exception being Liechtenstein, which does not organise a domestic league). The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:

NK Maribor

Nogometni Klub Maribor (English: Maribor Football Club), commonly referred to as NK Maribor or simply Maribor, is a professional football club based in Maribor, Slovenia. Founded on 12 December 1960, Maribor is one of only three football clubs in the country who have never been relegated from the Slovenian top flight 1. SNL since its establishment in 1991. They are regarded as a symbol of Slovenian football, particularly in their home region of Styria (Slovene: Štajerska) in the northeastern Slovenia.