Horse Racing stats man, Andy has contributed to OLBG for 18 years - An Ipswich fan and F1 fanatic, he also contributes EFL football and Motor Sport opinion.
EHF Champions League
Sixteen teams will be competing in the 66th edition of the EHF Champions League, looking to get their hands on the trophy come the end of the tournament. We look at the new season as well as previous winners of the EHF Champions League in this blog.
This tournament was created in 1956 and was originally known as the European Champions Cup. The format and name stayed in place until 1993, when the current format was employed and the competition name was changed to the current EHF Champions League.
The first eight titles under the new format and name all went to a Spanish team, five of those being Barcelona, and they have been in good form of late, too, winning it in 2021, 2022 and 2024.
The only team to stop them over the last four seasons is SC Magdeburg (2023 & 2025). Will there be another success for Barcelona this season? Or will SC Magdeburg deny them again?
Best Bookie for Handball Betting
EHF Champions League Preview
The 2025-26 EHF Champions League kicks off in September 2025 and with fourteen rounds of top-class action, the regular season will run through to March 2026 before going to the playoffs.
The season is made of two groups of eight teams, where a round-robin system is deployed with teams playing the other seven teams home and away, with a total of fourteen games.
The top two teams from each group will advance straight to the quarter-final stages of the playoffs, whilst those in third to sixth (4 from each group) will play one knock-out round to decide which four teams will join the others in the quarter-finals.
The playoffs will begin around the end of March and will conclude with the final, which will take place in June.
Most Successful EHF Champions League Nations
- Spain (18 Wins / 13 Runners-Up)
- Germany (18 Wins / 10 Runners-Up)
Barcelona has made four of the last six finals and has finished top four in all of the last seven seasons. They were beaten finalists in 2020, losing 33-28 to the German team THW Kiel, but in 2021 they won their 10th title when defeating Danish side Aalborg Håndbold 36-23.
In 2022, landed title number eleven with a 37-35 win over Polish side Vive Kielce, and it was number twelve in 2024 when defeating Aalborg 31-30. They are the all-time most successful club in this tournament, winning more than twice as many titles as their nearest rivals.
EHF Champions League Winners
Barcelona picked up the trophy in 2024, which was their twelfth tournament success and have now won three of the last five tournaments.
2021 Runners-up Aalborg (also runners-up in 2024) were the first Danish team to make it through to the final since Fredericia made the 1976 final; they were also beaten.
The 2023 & 2025 winners, SC Magdeburg, have now won all five finals that they have made it to, and the 2025 final was the first all-German affair since 2014.
The last ten EHF Champions League Champions
| Season | Champions | Score | Runners-Up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024–25 | SC Magdeburg | 32-26 | Füchse Berlin |
| 2023–24 | Barcelona | 31-30 | Aalborg Håndbold |
| 2022–23 | SC Magdeburg | 30-29 | Vive Kielce |
| 2021–22 | Barcelona | 37–35 | Vive Kielce |
| 2020–21 | Barcelona | 36–23 | Aalborg Håndbold |
| 2019–20 | THW Kiel | 33–28 | Barcelona |
| 2018–19 | RK Vardar | 27–24 | Telekom Veszprém |
| 2017–18 | Montpellier | 32–26 | HBC Nantes |
| 2016–17 | RK Vardar | 24–23 | Paris Saint-Germain |
| 2015–16 | Vive Tauron Kielce | 39–38 | Veszprém |
EHF Champions League Betting Tips
We have some excellent handball tipsters on OLBG who are making predictions daily, not only EHF Champions League tips either, but they will be picking outcomes on matches available in other tournaments too like the Women's EHF Champions League and more, head over to the Handball Tips page to see what they are backing today.
In addition to that page, we also have a Best Handball Tipsters page, where we only highlight tipsters who have made a profit over the past year, so you will only see the best tipsters' tips. Below are some betting statistics which you can also use to help you find a bet.
Five-Year Favourite Statistics
The favourite statistics have been jumping around a bit in more recent seasons, in the 2020-21 seasons we saw a total of 76% of favourites winning the games, in 2021-22 that number dropped down to 64%, however, that number jumped back up for the 2022-23 season with it rising from 64% up to 72%!. The 2023-24 season was on par with that with 71% winning again, a season later, that number dropped again, with only 61% of favourites winning last season, the lowest of the last five seasons.
- 2020-21: 95-125 (76.00%)
- 2021-22: 82-127 (64.57%)
- 2022-23: 94-131 (71.76%)
- 2023-24: 94-132 (71.21%)
- 2024-25: 81-132 (61.36%)
- Overall: 446-647 (68.93%)
Five-Year Goal Statistics
The goals in this competition generally go over the 50-point mark with 93% of the matches over the last five seasons going over that mark, then the numbers start tumbling, just 5 goals more at 55 and we are looking at only 74% of games and once you get to 60 that drops below the half mark with only 49% of matches, the average number of goals per game stands at 60.33 over the last five seasons.
- Over 52.5: 565 Games (86.92%)
- Over 55: 480 Games (73.85%)
- Over 57.5: 425 Games (65.38%)
- Over 60: 317 Games (48.77%)
- Over 62.5: 237 Games (36.46%)
- Over 65: 154 Games (23.69%)
EHF Champions League Most Wins
Barcelona had gone a few years without success before winning the 2021 title, but they backed that up with another win in 2022 and again in 2024. They have won more than twice as many as the next best, VfL Gummersbach, who has not tasted success since 1983.
Following their win in 2025, SC Magdeburg have now joined their fellow Germans on five wins, and it's another German team who are 4th in the list, with THW Kiel having won four tournaments.
| Rank | Club | Champions | Runner-Up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Barcelona | 12 | 5 |
| 2nd | VfL Gummersbach | 5 | 1 |
| 3rd | SC Magdeburg | 5 | 0 |
| 4th | THW Kiel | 4 | 4 |
| 5th | Ciudad Real | 3 | 2 |
Author Information
Our handball content is meticulously crafted by Andy, who maintains the EHF Champions League Preview content, keeping you up-to-date with the latest information.
Andy Powell
Content Editor
