| Cactus Sid |
02-10-2004 07:25 AM |
Uefa Cup (to carry on) has a number of ways to provide qualification. The first is the club which wins the national cup competition (so in England its the FA Cup) recieves a place in the Uefa Cup, if the winner qualifies for the Champions League in the same season, the runner-up recieves a place in the Uefa, if they are in the Champions League (say for example the final is Arsenal vs Manchester United) then the Uefa Cup position is allocated to the side which finishes 7th in the EPL. The teams which finish 5th and 6th in the EPL also qualify for the Uefa Cup automatically, as does the winner of the Carling Cup (or Worthington as you've put). The side which finishes 8th are given the option to participate in a competition known as the Intertoto Cup, this is a knockout compeititon where each game is played over 2 legs, and the winners advance to the next round. Their are 3 different matches played to determine 3 qualifiers for the Uefa Cup, this is for the whole of Europe. Each country is different and recieves a different number of places in relation to how well the country does in Europe, so for example Italy, Spain, Germany and England tend to recieve the most places for each competition.
In the Uefa Cup there is a qualifying round to determine some of the lower ranked clubs who enter the full Uefa Cup draw (you get clubs from Malta and Lithuania (for example) playing against each other) Also, the teams which have gained a place into the Champions League, (so say Slimea Wanderers win the Maltan league, they will enter the Champions League) which are lower-ranked, have to play a qualifying competition, if they are knocked out, they are able to enter the Uefa Cup, that is where the difference in prestige comes in. There are 3 qualifying rounds in the Champions League, the 1st round is usually the lowely countries who have qualified, the 2nd round is usually the sides which are slightly better, but nowhere near the best, or sides which qualify from coming in the final Champions League position in there country (so a couple of years ago, Newcastle finished 4th, and had to play 2 qualifying games) Teams in the 3rd round are those who have qualified from the 2nd qualifying phase and those who do not qualifiy automatically for the Champions League (so those who finish 3rd in leagues such as Italy, England, Spain and Germany, or those who finish 2nd in leagues such as France, Portugal and Holland) the winners of the 3rd qualifying stage enter the Champions League, while the losers enter the 1st round draw for the Uefa Cup.
So in the first round of the Uefa Cup you have those who have qualified from winning there qualifying rounds in the Uefa Cup, those who have lost in Champions League qualification, and those who qualified for the Uefa Cup outright anyway.
This leads to the 1st round of the cup, where ties are played over 2 legs, and the winners advance, the same goes for the 2nd leg.
The draws for the competition are determined by a seeding basis, and each seed is paired up with a non-seed, giving a block of 16 teams, the 8 seeds can then only be drawn against the 8 non-seeds, and this is the same for the second round draw.
It is also the same for the third round, but the difference then, is that sides which finish 3rd in there Champions League group, are out of the Champions League, but qualify for the Uefa Cup (so therefore another 8 teams are added to Uefa Cup draw)
The draw is made in the seeding process again, however, the difference being that by the third round of the Uefa Cup, the clubs should be of a better quality, so even a seed drawn against a non-seed can be a difficult match.
In the 4th round draw, any team can play any other team, and this continues until the final.
Clear as mud, eh?
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