UEFA Cup Group Stage Set to Go

Cup Holders Sevilla FC, Surprise Entrant Ajax Head Good Cast

For those of you who thought the UEFA Champions League had all the pageantry, spectacle and fantastic matchups, you’re partly right. But the UEFA Cup is beginning to have some of all of that as well. And the announcement that the Cup would now include a group stage like the Champions League is welcome news to a tournament that has long been considered a bridesmaid to the more lucrative CL.

While the group stage in the UEFA Cup will have five teams per group, there are some good groups and some that are going to be crapshoots until the final day.

Also different from the Champions League is that the top three teams from each group will advance to the final 32, along with all of the third-place teams from the Champions League. At that point, it returns to the traditional two-leg home-and-away head-to-head series until the final in Glasgow May 16.

Dutch teams are top seeds in two groups and a third is seeded second. In all there are four Holland clubs in the group stage, a monumental achievement considering there are only 18 in the Eredivisie. Some sentiment could be given to Israel, which placed two of its top clubs in the UEFA Cup group stage and must be considered dangerous since the country’s home match ban due to a war has now been lifted. Both Maccabi Haifa and Hapoel Tel-Aviv have something to play for that is considerably more than the other clubs can say. Another country that placed more than a few teams is England and Newcastle is an early favorite.


Group A
AJ Auxerre (France); Rangers FC (Scotland); FK Partizan (Serbia); AS Livorno Calcio (Italy); Maccabi Haifa FC (Israel)