Porto could not defend their title as they automatically qualified for the 2003–04 UEFA Champions League and also went on to win the final for their second European Cup title.
Association ranking
For the 2003–04 UEFA Cup, the associations were allocated places according to their 2002 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 1997–98 to 2001–02.
Teams
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:[1]
TH: Title holders
CW: Cup winners
CR: Cup runners-up
LC: League Cup winners
Nth: League position
PO: End-of-season European competition play-offs (winners or position)
Azerbaijan (AZE): Clubs from Azerbaijan were not admitted to UEFA competitions as no domestic competitions took place in 2002–03 season and AFFA was suspended by UEFA as a result of ongoing conflict between the clubs and federation.[2]
The first round featured the 41 winners of the qualifying round, joined by 36 directly qualified teams, the 16 losers of the Champions League third qualifying round and the 3 winners for the Intertoto Cup. The first legs were played on 24 and 25 September, and the second legs were played on 15 and 16 October 2003.
The second round featured the 41 winners of the first round. The first legs were played on 29 October and 6 November, and the second legs were played on 27 November and 11 December 2003.
In the final phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.
The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:[3]
In the draws for the third and fourth rounds, teams were seeded and divided into groups containing an equal number of seeded and unseeded teams. In each group, the seeded teams were drawn against the unseeded teams, with the first team drawn hosting the first leg. Teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other.
In the draws for the quarter-finals onwards, there were no seedings and teams from the same association could be drawn against each other.
The draw for the third round was held on 12 December 2003, 13:00 CET.[4]
The first legs were played on 26 February, and the second legs were played on 3 March 2004.
The draw for the fourth round was held on 4 March 2004, 14:00 CET.[5]
The first legs were played on 11 March, and the second legs were played on 25 March 2004.
The draw for the quarter-finals was held on 4 March 2004, 14:00 CET, immediately after the fourth round draw.[5]
The first legs were played on 8 April, and the second legs were played on 14 April 2004.
The draw for the semi-finals was held on 4 March 2004, 14:00 CET, immediately after the fourth round and quarter-final draws.[5]
The first legs were played on 22 April, and the second legs were played on 6 May 2004.
The final was played on 19 May 2004 at the Ullevi in Gothenburg, Sweden. A draw was held on 4 March 2004 (after the fourth round, quarter-final and semi-final draws) to determine the "home" team for administrative purposes.[5]
^"Last 32 in UEFA Cup hat". UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. 12 December 2003. Archived from the original on 12 December 2003. Retrieved 27 September 2024.
^"4. UEFA Cup Finals"(PDF). UEFA Europa League Statistics Handbook 2012/13. Nyon: Union of European Football Associations. 28 May 2013. p. 72. Archived from the original(PDF) on 4 June 2013. Retrieved 27 September 2024.
^"UEFA Cup Final"(PDF). UEFA Direct. No. 27. Union of European Football Associations. July 2004. p. 6. Retrieved 28 September 2024.
