A total of 157 teams from 53 UEFA associations participated in the 2008–09 UEFA Cup. Associations were allocated places according to their 2007 UEFA league coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2002–03 to 2006–07.[4]
Below is the qualification scheme for the 2008–09 UEFA Cup:[5]
Associations 1–6 each have three teams qualify
Associations 7 and 8 each have four teams qualify
Associations 9–15 and 22–51 each have two teams qualify, except Liechtenstein, which has one team qualify (as Liechtenstein only has a domestic cup and no domestic league)
Associations 16–21 each have three teams qualify
Associations 52 and 53 each have one team qualify
plus
The top three associations of the 2007–08 UEFA Fair Play ranking each gain an additional berth
(FP): Additional fair play berth (Denmark, England, Germany)[6][7][8][9][10]
(UCL): Additional teams transferred from the UEFA Champions League
Distribution
Since the winners of the 2007–08 UEFA Cup, Zenit Saint Petersburg, qualified for the 2008–09 UEFA Champions League through domestic performance, the title holder spot reserved for them in the playoff round was vacated. As a result, the following changes to the default allocation system were made to compensate for the vacant title holder spot in the group stage:[11]
The domestic cup winners of associations 14 (Turkey) was promoted from the second qualifying round to the play-off round.
The first UEFA Cup entrant of associations 19 and 20 (Israel and Serbia) were promoted from the first qualifying round to the second qualifying round.
Teams entering in this round
Teams advancing from previous round
Teams transferred from Champions League
Teams transferred from Intertoto Cup
First qualifying round (74 teams)
33 cup winners from associations 21–53
32 runners-up from associations 19–37, 39–50 and 53
A UEFA Cup place is vacated when a team qualifies for both the Champions League and the UEFA Cup, or qualifies for the UEFA Cup by more than one method. When a place is vacated, it is redistributed within the national association by the following rules:[5]
When the domestic cup winners (considered as the "highest-placed" qualifiers within the national association) also qualify for the Champions League, their UEFA Cup place is vacated, and the remaining UEFA Cup qualifiers are moved up one place, with the final place (with the earliest starting round) taken by the domestic cup runners-up, provided they do not already qualify for the Champions League or the UEFA Cup. Otherwise, this place is taken by the highest-placed league finishers that have not yet qualified for the European competitions.
When the domestic cup winners also qualify for the UEFA Cup through league position, their place through the league position is vacated, and the UEFA Cup qualifiers that finish lower in the league are moved up one place, with the final place taken by the highest-placed league finishers that have not yet qualified for the UEFA Cup.
A place vacated by the League Cup winners is taken by the highest-placed league finishers that have not yet qualified for the UEFA Cup.
A Fair Play place is taken by the highest-ranked team in the domestic Fair Play table that has not yet qualified for the Champions League or the UEFA Cup.
Bulgaria (BUL): After Bulgarian champions CSKA Sofia failed to obtain a UEFA licence and replaced in the Champions League by runners-up Levski Sofia, league 3rd-placed team Lokomotiv Sofia moved up from First to Second qualifying round, while 5th-placed team Cherno More were awarded a spot in the First qualifying round.[12]
Austria (AUT): 2007–08 Austrian Cup winners SV Horn were not admitted to UEFA Cup as the Austrian Cup was limited to amateur clubs that season. Austrian Bundesliga 3rd-placed club admitted to UEFA Cup instead.[14]
Northern Ireland (NIR): 2007–08 Irish Cup runners-up Coleraine failed to obtain UEFA license and were replaced by Irish Premier League 3rd-placed team Cliftonville.[16]
Round and draw dates
The calendar shows the dates of the rounds and draw.[11]
The three UEFA Cup regions, used for the regionalised qualifying stage draws, in a map
First qualifying round
The draw for the first qualifying round took place on 1 July 2008.[17] The first legs were played on 17 July 2008 and the second legs were played on 29 and 31 July 2008.
Three of the 37 ties were won by the team with the lower UEFA coefficient, all involving teams whose ranking was that of their association: WIT Georgia (Georgia, ranked 38) beat Spartak Trnava (Slovakia, 24); Vllaznia (Albania, 43) beat Koper (Slovenia, 29); and St Patrick's Athletic (Ireland, 35) beat Olimps/ASK (Latvia, 31).
^Midtjylland were originally drawn to play at home in the first leg, but the order of the games was reversed.
Second qualifying round
The draw for the second qualifying round was held on 1 August 2008 in Nyon, Switzerland,[18] and featured 16 teams entering directly at the second qualifying round, as well as the 37 winners from the previous round and the 11 third round winners of the UEFA Intertoto Cup. The first legs were played on 14 August 2008 and the second leg on 28 August 2008.
12 of the 32 ties were won by the team with the lower UEFA coefficient. The 12 teams that lost to a lower team were: AEK Athens, Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, Aris, Red Star Belgrade, Grasshopper, Slovan Liberec, Viking, Lokomotiv Sofia, IF Elfsborg, Gent, Queen of the South and Debrecen. St Patrick's Athletic were the only team to beat a higher-seeded team in each of the two qualifying rounds.
^Due to the current conflict in Georgia and the ensuing safety concerns, UEFA ordered the first leg to be cancelled. The match was held as a single leg tie in Vienna.[20]
The number of each teams from each nation which qualified for the First Round
The draw, which was conducted by UEFA General Secretary David Taylor, was held on 29 August 2008 at 13:00 CET in Monaco.
The matches were played on 18 September and 2 October 2008.
Teams that have qualified for the group stage of the 2008–09 UEFA Cup Red: Group A; Yellow: Group B; Green: Group C; Black: Group D; Purple: Group E; Pink: Group F; Blue: Group G; Orange: Group H.
The draw for the group stage of the 2008–09 UEFA Cup was held at UEFA Headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, on 7 October 2008. The 40 teams in the draw were divided into five pots based on their UEFA coefficients. The eight teams with the highest UEFA coefficient were allocated to Pot 1, the next eight teams to Pot 2, and so on. One team from each pot was drawn for each group, with the restriction that no team could be drawn with one from the same country.[21]
The top three teams (highlighted in green) of each group qualified for the next round. Based on paragraph 6.06 in the UEFA regulations for the current season, if two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied to determine the rankings:[5]
superior goal difference from all group matches played;
higher number of goals scored;
higher number of goals scored away;
higher number of wins;
higher number of away wins;
higher number of coefficient points accumulated by the club in question, as well as its association, over the previous five seasons.
In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.
The draw mechanism for each round is as follows:
In the draw for the round of 32, matches were played between the winner of one group and the third-placed team of a different group, and between the runners-up of one group and the third-placed team from a Champions League group, with the group winner and runner-up host the second leg. Teams from the same national association or have played in the same group in the group stages cannot be drawn together.
From the round of 16 onwards, these restrictions did not apply, and teams from same group or same association could be drawn together.
The draw for the round of 32 took place on 19 December 2008, the day after the final round of UEFA Cup group stage matches.[22]
The first legs were played on 18 February and 19 February, and the second leg matches were played on 26 February 2009.
Manchester City were the only team from the first qualifying round to reach the round of 16. Braga were the only team from the Intertoto Cup to reach the round of 16 and were therefore awarded the title of Intertoto Cup winners. Of the eight teams who had been placed in Pot 5 of the group stage draw, only Metalist Kharkiv and Saint-Étienne reached the round of 16. Of the eight teams that entered the Round of the 32 from the UEFA Champions League group stage, two lost: Fiorentina and Bordeaux. Of the eight ties between a third-placed team and a first-placed team from the UEFA Cup group stage, two were won by the third-placed team; the winners were Braga and Paris Saint-Germain.
The draw for the round of 16 took place on 19 December 2008, immediately after the draw for the round of 32.[22]
The first leg matches were played on 12 March, and the second leg matches were played on 18 March and 19 March 2009.
The draw for the semi-finals took place on 20 March 2009, immediately after the draw for the quarter-finals.
The first legs were played on 30 April and the second legs on 7 May.
^"Draw for UEFA Cup Group Stage"(PDF). Union of European Football Associations. 29 September 2008. Archived(PDF) from the original on 1 October 2008. Retrieved 30 September 2008.
