Welcome to the Offside UEFA Cup blog
By: Ian Rose | June 24th, 2007
Welcome to the Offside UEFA Cup blog.
Though the Champions League is clearly the more prestigious and lucrative of the two, I love, and in fact prefer, the UEFA Cup. I think it’s one of the great football tournaments in the world, and a much more wide-open tournament than the CL. The “little guy”, whether it’s a team from a small league, or one of the mid-range teams in a big league, can succeed here. Last year’s runner-up, Espanyol, came in as the 15th-ranked team in Spain’s La Liga, having qualified, as many UEFA Cup competitors do, by winning a domestic cup. It really is a tournament where almost any team can win on any given matchday, and that makes it, in my opinion, one of the great ones to watch.
This is a special year for the UEFA Cup, as the tournament celebrates its 50th running. 123 clubs from every league in UEFA will enter the qualifying rounds, and over the period of almost eleven months, they will be pared down to two survivors, who will face off in Manchester on May 14, 2008.
Most of those teams are already decided, having won invitations by way of their final league placements or cup tournaments. However, there are still a few places to be won. The Intertoto Cup, once a meaningless mid-summer tournament which existed only to fill a gap in sports gambling between seasons, now offers eleven seats in the second qualifying round of the UEFA Cup to the survivors of its three rounds.
The Intertoto Cup is not officially a part of the UEFA Cup, only a qualifier, but that’s where the coverage of this year’s tournament will begin. I will do my best to bring you results and stories from Intertoto over the next month. Last year, an Intertoto qualifier, Newcastle United, made it all the way to the UEFA Cup’s round of 16, and three others made it to the group stage, so these teams can certainly be X-factors in the tournament.
In addition to coverage of the Intertoto Cup and UEFA Cup matchdays, I will be posting a few ongoing columns about the tournament and its history. Once a week, this blog will include a “UEFA Cup Memories” post, with pictures and video from great UEFA Cup matches of old. Also, the regular column “Know Your Minnows” will cover the teams that rarely get much press, but still have an interesting story to tell.
Like I said, I am personally a huge fan of the UEFA Cup, and I hope that over the next year, I will be able to spread my love of the tournament to some of you, and hopefully inform you about some things you might not have heard about as we progress from Intertoto to qualifying to the tournament proper. I’m really looking forward to it, and I hope you enjoy the blog.
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Comments
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Woot! Can’t wait to know my minnows. You’d better do justice to Sochaux, Bordeaux, Rennes and Lens! Good luck Ian.
Posted from
Canada
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sounds fun.. spurs v. bayern in the final anyone? (draw permitting)
Posted from
United States -
Ben - that’s definitely possible. I think England has a great shot at this year’s Cup, with either Spurs or Everton, and Bayern is one of those borderline Champions League-UEFA Cup teams that could really go far. Time will tell.
Posted from
United States -
Great idea Ian — best of luck. Spell checker is sure to come in handy for some of the teams that play in this competition!
Posted from
United States -
Great! I’m really looking forward to your posts. Your commitment to history and the smaller teams is especially welcome!
My outsiders bet would be Hamburg. They still have to go through the Intertoto, so their campaign could be over very soon if they have a rocky start to the season. But once that obstacle is out of the way they can achieve something. It was only for a wasted first half of the season that they only made it to the Intertoto.
Anyway, I have to say that I have some issues with the current format of the competition. Probably it’s worth a separate post discussing it. Basically what I hate is the group stage. It’s the most boring part of European football every season. The UEFA Cup has lost a lot of its former appeal after the CL was introduced and playing in a mode similar to the CL doesn’t help. Probably a pure knockout tournament or a sort of European League mode?
Posted from
Germany -
Welcome!
It’s good to see the UEFA cup covered. It might not be as glamorous as the Champions League, but I think it’s a far better indicator of the relative strength of domestic leagues than the CL, in which luck plays too large of a factor.
Also, here’s a really embarrassing fact. France has the highest number of Intertoto Cup wins (10) but have only won the CL once and have never won the UEFA Cup. And yet France produces some of the best footballers in the entire world.
Something is clearly wrong here.
Posted from
United States -
Thanks for welcomes, everybody.
Jan - I have to admit, I like the group stage. In single-elimination tournaments, there’s so much luck involved, and the group stage gives a team a chance to rebound from a bad day, but I understand your point. Alternative format ideas are definitely worth a post in the future.
Inara - Yeah, I know - France’s lack of success in the UEFA Cup is a little weird, no cups and four runner-ups. Turkey’s got one, Croatia’s got one, but no France. Maybe this is the year when Bordeaux breaks through. We’ll see.
Posted from
United States -
Ian,
I agree with everyone else, this is a great topic to cover and your blogging has been really fun to read thus far. The minnows series definitely shows a lot of promise.
I’m desperately hoping Spurs will take it, but I’m not confident. If they can reach the semis or the final I’ll be pretty impressed. It’s sad, but it seems like this is more or less Bayern’s tournament to lose. Scheiss Bayern…
Posted from
United States
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