The UEFA Cup: Awful Group Stage, Great Knockouts

By: Daryl | February 22nd, 2008

Oh the UEFA Cup. The Champions League’s sad little brother. The competition takes its share of stick, but it’s gotten all exciting again recently with the return of knockout football. The last 32 threw up some good games, like Benfica’s dramatic comeback and big wins for Bayern Munich, Everton and Bayer Leverkuesen. Last night if felt like the tournament reclaimed legitimacy, and the last 16 is looking appetizing too. Maybe not Champions League appetizing, but enough to sit down and eat. The draw looks like this:

Getafe v Benfica

Anderlecht v Bayern Munich

Bolton v Sporting

Bayer Leverkusen v Hamburg

Marseille v Zenit St Petersburg

Rangers v Werder Bremen/Braga

Fiorentina v Everton

Tottenham v PSV Eindhoven

Not too shabby, especially those last two games. And it’s led Reuters Soccer Blog to ask the question: is the UEFA Cup back?

Well, sort of. The way I see it is that the UEFA Cup always gets interesting when the knockout games return, because knockout football rules. It’s the UEFA Cup group stages that are damn near unwatchable. While the Champions League group stages aren’t always great either, at least they make sense. The four teams play each other home and away and the top two make the last sixteen. There’s also much television money to be made from the group stages that clubs are desparate to be involved.

Not in the UEFA Cup. It’s groups of five, the teams play each other on a haphazard schedule and then the top three out of the five teams go through anyway. On top of that, it’s not exactly a moneyspinner. It costs money for clubs to travel all over Europe (usually to the far flung corners where teams don’t get automatic Champions League qualification) and there’s not much tv money in return. It just feels pointless, and gives the UEFA Cup a bad name. So if UEFA want to keep interest in their middle child alive (the Intertoto is the runt of the litter) then let’s get rid of the group stage and have some full on knockout football.

To follow the UEFA Cup from the last 16 onwards, keep an eye on UEFA Cup Offside.