The 2014–15 UEFA Youth League was the second season of the UEFA Youth League, a European youth club football competition organised by UEFA. It was contested by the under-19 youth teams of the 32 clubs qualified for the group stage of the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League.[1]
The final was played on 13 April 2015 at the Colovray Stadium in Nyon, Switzerland, between Shakhtar Donetsk and Chelsea. Chelsea won 3–2 and secured their first title in the competition. Barcelona were the title holders, but were eliminated by Anderlecht in the round of 16.
Players must be born on or after 1 January 1996.[1]
The schedule of the competition was as follows.[2][3] However, matches in the round of 16 and quarter-finals could be played outside of the scheduled dates.
On 23 September 2014, UEFA announced a change to the schedule of the semi-finals and finals, which were originally due to take place on 24 and 27 April respectively.[4]
Location of teams of the 2014–15 UEFA Youth League. Brown: Group A; Red: Group B; Orange: Group C; Yellow: Group D; Green: Group E; Blue: Group F; Purple: Group G; Pink: Group H.
In each group, teams played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The matchdays were 16–18 September, 30 September–2 October, 21–23 October, 4–6 November, 25–27 November, and 9–11 December 2014, with the matches played on the same matchday as the corresponding Champions League matches, but not necessarily on the same day. The group winners and runners-up advanced to the round of 16.
^The match was awarded as a 3–0 win for Anderlecht after the match was abandoned in the 90+5th minute (with Anderlecht leading 2–0) due to crowd disturbances by Galatasaray supporters.[7]
In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over one match. If scores were level after full-time, the match was decided by penalty shoot-out (no extra time was played).[1]
The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:
In the draw for the round of 16, the eight group winners were seeded, and the eight group runners-up were unseeded. The seeded teams were drawn against the unseeded teams, with the seeded teams hosting the match. Teams from the same group or the same association could not be drawn against each other.
In the draws for the quarter-finals onwards, there were no seedings, and teams from the same group or the same association could be drawn against each other. The draw also decided the home team for each quarter-final, and the "home" team for administrative purposes for each semi-final and final (which were played on neutral ground).
Bracket
The draw for the knockout phase was held on 15 December 2014, 14:00 CET, at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.[2][8][9] On 17 July 2014, the UEFA emergency panel ruled that Ukrainian and Russian clubs would not be drawn against each other "until further notice" due to the political unrest between the countries.[10] Therefore, Ukrainian club Shakhtar Donetsk and Russian club Zenit Saint Petersburg could not be drawn against each other in the round of 16. The winners of the ties involving these two clubs could also not be drawn against each other in the quarter-finals.
