UEFA Cup

UEFA Cup 2008-09 Group Stages draw

The draw for the group stages of the 2008-09 UEFA Cup has been made, and we have some excellent fixtures within.

Portsmouth, in their debut season in Europe, will get a chance to play AC Milan at Fratton Park. Pompey are in Group E along with Herenveen, Braga and Wolfsburg.

There are eight groups in all, and 3 teams from each group qualify for the next round. They will be joined by the eight third placed teams in each Champions League group.

Group A :-

Schalke ( Germany)
Paris St.Germain ( France)
Manchester City ( England)
Racing Santander ( Spain)
FC Twente ( Netherlands)

Group B :-

Benfica ( Portugal)
Olympiakos ( Greece)
Galatasaray ( Turkey)
Hertha Berlin ( Germany)
Metalist Kharkiv ( Ukraine)

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Manchester City claim last UEFA Cup spot

Sven Goran Eriksson managed Manchester City will play in the UEFA Cup season next season, after the Eastlands club claimed the last UEFA Cup Spot by winning England’s Fair Play Award. The Premiership Fairplay Table can be seen here. As the table clearly shows, Manchester City are sixth with 1263 points. The top five, from first to fifth are Spurs, Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Everton. Spurs will play in the UEFA Cup thanks to their brilliant League Cup win over Avram Grant’s Chelsea. Liverpool, United and Arsenal are in the Champions League, and Everton finished fifth in the Premiership table, which meant that they took England’s solitary Premiership UEFA Cup spot.

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How did Zenit St Petersburg make it to the UEFA Cup final ?

As you all might be knowing, Russian side Zenit St. Petersburg will meet Rangers in the final of the UEFA Cup 2007-08 (this season). Zenit upset FC Bayern, while Rangers beat Fiorentina on penalties. Zenit are coached by Dick Advocaat.

Here is a look at Zenit’s path to the final. A similar article for Rangers will follow.

Road to CoMS for Zenit St. Petersburg

Second Qualifying Round

First leg – Vion Zlate Moravce 0-2 Zenit St. Petersburg ( Erik Hagen, Alexsei Ionov)

Second leg- Zenit St. Petersburg 3-0 Vion Zlate Moravce (Pavel Pogrebnyak,Ilya Maksimov, Kim Dong Jin)

Zenit win 5-0 on aggregate

First round

First leg- Zenit 3-1 Standard ( Andrei Arshavin *2, Kim Dong Jin)

Second leg- Standard 1-1 Zenit St. Petersburg (Oguchi Onyewu/Pavel Pogrebnyak)

Zenit win 4-1 on aggregate.

Group Stage- Group A

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