2016–17 EHF Champions League


The 2016–17 EHF Champions League was the 57th edition of Europe's premier club handball tournament and the 24th edition under the current EHF Champions League format. Vardar were crowned champions for the first time, defeating Paris Saint-Germain Handball

Competition format

Twenty-eight teams participated in the competition, divided in four groups. Groups A and B were played with eight teams each, in a round robin, home and away format. The top team in each group qualified directly for the quarter-finals, the bottom two in each group dropped out of the competition and the remaining 10 teams qualified for the first knock-out phase.
In groups C and D, six teams played in each group in a round robin format, playing both home and away. The top two teams in each group then met in a ‘semi-final’ play-off, with the two winners going through to the first knock-out phase. The remaining teams dropped out of the competition.
;Knock-out Phase 1
12 teams played home and away in the first knock-out phase, with the 10 teams qualified from groups A and B and the two teams qualified from groups C and D.
;Knock-out Phase 2
The six winners of the matches in the first knock-out phase joined with the winners of groups A and B to play home and away for the right to play in the Velux EHF Final4.
;Final four
The culmination of the season, the Velux EHF Final4, continued in its existing format, with the four top teams from the competition competing for the title.

Team allocation

26 teams were directly qualified for the group stage.
The qualification and group stage draw was held in Glostrup, Denmark.
PhaseDraw date
Qualification tournaments29 June 2016
Group stage1 July 2016
Knockout stage1 July 2016
Final Four
2 May 2017

Qualification stage

The draw was held on 29 June 2016 at 13:00 in Vienna, Austria. The eight teams were split in two groups and played a semifinal and final to determine the last participants. Matches were played on 3 and 4 September 2016.

Qualification tournament 1

Qualification tournament 2

Group stage

The draw for the group stage was held on 1 July 2016 at 13:00 in the Vienna city centre. The 28 teams were drawn into four groups, two containing eight teams and two containing six teams. The only restriction is that teams from the same national association could not face each other in the same group. Since Germany qualified three teams, the lowest seeded side was drawn with one of the other two.
In each group, teams played against each other in a double round-robin format, with home and away matches.
After completion of the group stage matches, the knockout stage was determined in the following manner:

Tiebreakers
In the group stage, teams were ranked according to points. After completion of the group stage, if two or more teams scored the same number of points, the ranking was determined as follows :
  1. Highest number of points in matches between the teams directly involved
  2. Superior goal difference in matches between the teams directly involved
  3. Highest number of goals scored in matches between the teams directly involved
  4. Superior goal difference in all matches of the group
  5. Highest number of plus goals in all matches of the group
If the ranking of one of these teams was determined, the above criteria were consecutively followed until the ranking of all teams was determined. If no ranking was determined, a decision was to be obtained by EHF through drawing of lots.
During the group stage, only criteria 4–5 applied to determine the provisional ranking of teams.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Playoffs

Knockout stage

The first-placed team from the preliminary groups A and B advanced to the quarterfinals, while the 2–6th placed teams advanced to the round of 16 alongside the playoff winners.

Round of 16

Quarterfinals

Final four

Final

Statistics

Top goalscorers

Statistics exclude qualifying rounds.
RankPlayerTeamGoals
1 Uwe Gensheimer Paris Saint-Germain115
2 Mikkel Hansen Paris Saint-Germain99
3 Momir Ilić MVM Veszprém89
4 Zsolt BaloghPick Szeged88
4 Jure DolenecMontpellier88
6 Kiril Lazarov Barcelona85
7 Gábor Császár Kadetten Schaffhausen84
8 Alex Dujshebaev Vardar83
9 Nedim Remili Paris Saint-Germain81
9 Rastko Stojković Meshkov Brest81

Awards

The all-star team was announced on 1 June 2017.
;Other awards