The UEFA Cup is European football’s second-tier intercontinental competition. While lacking the prestige and money of the Champions League, the UEFA Cup is still an excellent opportunity for the smaller clubs to make a name for themselves, and as a result provides a more competitive contest, with less tense and more entertaining football. A number of eventually great players have all made a name for themselves in this contest before breaking onto the bigger stage of the Champions League – Zinedine Zidane was a losing finalist with Bordeaux in 1995, Thierry Henry lost the final in his first with Arsenal in 2000, and Deco won it 2003. The UEFA Cup has involved from a purely knockout tournament into one that involves an initial qualifying and knockout stage, after which teams are then sorted into groups, with the top teams going on to the final knockout phase of 32 teams. Winners of domestic cups, and teams finishing below Champions League places in domestic leagues are eligible for this tournament (depending on the country), as well teams that enter the Intertoto Cup, and ones that are selected through UEFA’s Fair Play table.

Consolation for Champions League losers

An interesting feature of the UEFA Cup since the reorganization of the Champions League into group stages, has been entering of the 3rd place UCL group team into the UEFA Cup. The teams that finish third in their respective groups after the group stages have ended are given automatic entry into the later stages of the UEFA Cup. This is beneficial to the UEFA Cup, as they receive a number of generally big teams in the latter part of the competition (recent years have included Arsenal and Barcelona), as well to the teams, who get a further opportunity to win a trophy and earn TV and match revenue after their Champions League disappointments.