UEFA Cup: Four out of Four
By: Jan | October 4th, 2007Some good news from the European stage at last. The UEFA Cup may lack the mass appeal of its big European brother, but it’s still nice to see, that all four Bundesliga clubs made it to the group stage. It helps soothe the Champions League wounds a bit. And not all European top leagues were that fortunate. Spain and England lost one team each, France lost two and Italy had even three of their four clubs eliminated from the competition. It’s also a nice change compared to last season, where Schalke and Berlin embarrassed themselves, when they crashed out against inferior competition. Trivia side-note: Greece, Russia and Germany are the only countries, who still have all their teams in the European competitions.
I’m most happy that Nuremberg made it. They had to wait 19 years to get another shot at Europe and it was 45 years ago, when they last made it to the next round. The Club probably had the toughest draw, as they were the unseeded of the Bundesliga sides, and the 0-0 draw against Bucarest at home didn’t make me too optimistic either. But a 2-2 draw was enough to send them through on away goals. They were close to winning it even, but Bucarest scored the equaliser in the third minute of overtime. The group stage means, that Nuremberg have at least four more matches ahead of them, which makes it a proper European vacation.
Leverkusen and Bayern both provided rather boring performances in front of 1800 and 3000 people respectively. The Portuges don’t give a !$#* about the UEFA Cup I guess. Bayern won their match against Belenenses 2-0, while Leverkusen lost against Leira 2-3, due to a beautiful free kick in overtime, but won on aggregate.
The most entertaining performance of the night was provided by Hamburg, who beat Litex Lovech 3-1 at home, including a beautiful goal by Paolo Guerrero, with which I will conclude this post. For more UEFA Cup coverage check out Ian’s UEFA Cup Offside.
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Comments
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Lovely strike. Yeah, Germany definitely made back some points missed in the first two CL matchdays. Even if no one seems to care about the UEFA Cup until the late rounds, it’s important for league coefficients. Thanks largely to the UEFA Cup, the Bundesliga is going to hold onto its status as the fifth-ranked league in UEFA, and might make up serious ground on France if they continue to struggle. Good day for Germany, as well as Russia and Greece.
Posted from
United States
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Going for 7 out of 8 qtr final places: http://bundesliga-talk.blogspot.com
Posted from
United States -
“The closest the Bundesliga have come since was Borussia Dortmund’s loss in Rotterdam to Feyenoord in 2002. It was a tragedy, really, as Dortmund awaited the return leg only to find out the competition had changed to a one-leg final three years prior.”
Steven is still trying to come to terms with this and is repeatedly asking me, whether I got any news as to whether they’ve set a date for the second leg yet.
To Ian: Or a good day for Moscow.:-) I just noticed that all four Russian clubs in the competition are from Moscow.
Posted from
Germany -
Jan: Almost. Zenit St. Petersburg is still in the UEFA Cup, but yeah, CSKA Moscow, Spartak Moscow and Locomotiv Moscow are all still alive in Europe. That town’s going to get a lot of European football this season, appropriate I guess since they’re hosting the Champions League final.
Posted from
United States -
Wooops. Seems my mind automatically turned Zenit into Zenit Moscow.:-)
Posted from
Germany -
come on poldi, get some goals
Posted from
Canada
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