2007–08 UEFA Cup


The 2007–08 UEFA Cup was the 37th edition of the UEFA Cup, UEFA's former second-tier club football tournament. The 2008 [UEFA Cup Final|final] was played at the City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester, England on 14 May 2008 between Rangers of Scotland and Zenit Saint Petersburg of Russia. Zenit won the match 2–0, with goals from Igor Denisov and Konstantin Zyryanov, to claim their first UEFA Cup title. The first qualifying games were played on 19 July 2007 and the main tournament commenced on 20 September 2007. A total of 157 football clubs took part in the tournament.
Each European football nation is represented by a different number of its associate clubs, depending on the UEFA coefficients. Budućnost Podgorica and Rudar Pljevlja were the first teams from Montenegro to enter the competition.
The semi-final between Zenit and Bayern Munich was alleged to have been fixed. Both clubs denied the allegations, and the UEFA probe found no wrongdoing on either part.
Sevilla could not defend their title as they automatically qualified for the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League and also reached the 2007–08 [UEFA Champions League knockout stage|knockout stage].
The tournament's top scorers were Pavel Pogrebnyak of Zenit Saint Petersburg and Luca Toni of Bayern Munich, each with 10 goals.
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Association team allocation

A total of 157 teams from all 53 UEFA member associations participated in the 2007–08 UEFA Cup. The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:
  • Associations 1–6 and 16–21 each had three teams qualify.
  • Associations 7–8 each had four teams qualify.
  • Associations 9–15 and 22–53 each had two teams qualify.
  • Liechtenstein, San Marino and Andorra had only one team that qualified.
Moreover, the following teams also qualified for the competition:

Association ranking

For the 2007–08 UEFA Cup, the associations were allocated places according to their 2006 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2001–02 to 2005–06.
Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the UEFA Cup, as noted below:

Distribution

The following was the access list for this season.
RoundTeams entering in this roundTeams advancing from the previous roundTeams transferred from Champions League or Intertoto Cup
First qualifying round

  • 33 domestic cup winners from associations 21–53
  • 32 domestic league runners-up from associations 19–53
  • 6 domestic league third-placed teams from associations 16–21
  • 3 teams which qualified via Fair Play ranking
Second qualifying round
  • 6 domestic cup winners from associations 15–20
  • 3 domestic league runners-up from associations 16–18
  • 7 domestic league third-placed teams from associations 9–15
  • 37 winners from the first qualifying round
  • 11 winners from UEFA Intertoto Cup third round
    • First round
    • 14 domestic cup winners from associations 1–14
    • 2 domestic league third-placed teams from associations 7–8
    • 5 domestic league fourth-placed teams from associations 4–8
    • 8 domestic league fifth-placed teams from associations 1–8
    • 3 domestic league sixth-placed teams from associations 1–3
  • 32 winners from the second qualifying round
  • 16 losers from Champions League third qualifying round
    • Group stage
    • 40 winners from the first round
    Knockout stage
    • 8 group winners from the group stage
    • 8 group runners-up from the group stage
    • 8 group third-placed teams from the group stage
  • 8 group third-placed teams from Champions League group stage
    • Due to the UEFA Cup title holder qualifying for the Champions League via their domestic league, the following changes to the access list were made:
    • The cup winners of association 14 entered the UEFA Cup first round instead of the second qualifying round.
    • The cup winners of association 19 and 20 entered the UEFA Cup second qualifying round instead of the first qualifying round.

    Teams

    The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
    • CW: Domestic cup winners
    • CR: Domestic cup runners-up
    • 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.: League position of the previous season
    • LC: League cup winners
    • PO: End-of-season UEFA Cup play-offs winners
    • IC: Intertoto Cup third round winners
    • FP: Qualified via Fair Play ranking
    • CL: Transferred from the Champions League
    • * Q3: Losers from the third qualifying round
    • * GS: Third-placed teams from the group stage
    ;Notes

    Group stage

    The draw, which was conducted by UEFA's director of professional football Giorgio Marchetti and Michele Centenaro, UEFA's head of club competitions, was held on Tuesday, 9 October 2007 at 12:00 CET in Nyon, Switzerland.
    The top three teams 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 were equal on points on completion of all the group matches, the following criteria were applied to determine the rankings:
    1. superior goal difference from all group matches played;
    2. higher number of goals scored in all group matches played;
    3. higher number of goals scored away in all group matches played;
    4. higher number of wins;
    5. higher number of away wins;
    6. higher number of coefficient points accumulated by the club in question, as well as its association, over the previous five seasons.

    Knockout stage

    All of the rounds in the final phase are two-legged, except for the final. In the event of aggregate scores being equal after normal time in the second leg, the winning team will be that which scored more goals on their away leg: if the scores in the two matches were identical, extra time is played. The away goals rule also applies if scores are equal at the end of extra time. If there are no goals scored in extra time, the tie is decided on a penalty shoot out. The team first out of the hat in each tie plays the first leg of their tie at home, and the second leg away.

    Top goalscorers

    The top scorers in the 2007–08 UEFA Cup are the following:
    RankNameTeamGoalsAppearances
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