Soccer Betting - UEFA Cup 2007-2008
History - Facts - Statistics - Winners - 2007/08 Calendar
The UEFA Cup is a football competition for European club teams, created from an idea of Switzerland's Ernst Thommen, the Italian Ottorino Barrasi (both future FIFA vice-presidents) and England's Sir Stanley Rous, who was president of the FIFA from 1961 to 1974. This three men conceived the idea of creating a tournament for representative sides from European cities that regularly held trade fairs.
Starting from there the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup was founded on 18 April 1955. The original tournament lasted 3 years and involved teams from Barcelona, Basle, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Lausanne, Leipzig, London, Milan and Zagreb; and the matches were timed to coincide with trade fairs.
For the tournament the organisers reverted the club participation but the teams still had to come from cities staging trade fair. Sixteen clubs took part in the 1958-60 tournament, after which it was staged on an annual basis.
During the 1961-62 season they were amended to allow three teams per country to enter, raising the number of participants to 32; nowadays there are over 100. In its early years, teams from Southern Europe dominated, notably the 3 teams from Spain: Barcelona, that won it three times, Valencia CF who won it twice and Real Zaragoza that beat Valencia in 1963/64 season.
In 1968 the English clubs turned the page: Leeds United AFC became the first Northern European club to win the trophy, heralding a run of six successive wins by English clubs.
In 1971/72, Tottenham Hotspur FC won the fifth trophy for England, and the first to be known as the UEFA Cup. The change of name was recognition of the fact the competition was now run by UEFA and no longer associated with the trade fairs.
During the 1970s German, Dutch, Belgian and Swedish sides began to successfully compete with the English and between 1968 and 1984 only one team from the south – Juventus FC in 1977 – managed to disrupt the dominance of the Northern Europeans.
During the 1990's Italian clubs took control of the UEFA Cup. Starting from 1989 with Napoli's victory, Italian sides won eight of the following eleven seasons. The format of two-legged chaged permanently to a one-tie final in 1998 when Inter beat S.S. Lazio 3-0 at the Parc des Princes in Paris.
The competition was traditionally open to the runners-up of domestic leagues but in 1999 the competition was merged with UEFA's third European competition, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup. Since then, the winners of domestic cup competitions have also entered the UEFA Cup. Also, clubs eliminated in the third qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League and the third placed teams at the end of the group phase could go on to compete in the UEFA Cup. Also admitted to the competition are three Fair Play representatives, eleven UEFA Intertoto Cup winners, and winners of some selected domestic league cup competitions.
Sevilla FC are the current holders of the UEFA Cup having won the competition for the second year in a row with their latest triumph occurring in Hampden Park, Glasgow, Scotland, on 16 May 2007.
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