1. Which was more prestigious? 2. Which had a higher level? Ive seen the cup winners cup was more prestigious and the one teams wanted to win more, but surely the uefa cup had a higher level
Hard call but IIRC the Cup Winners Cup did have precedence i.e if a team came 2nd in the league and won the cup they would enter the Cup Winners Cup....but that situation probably didn't occur close to 100% of the time in every league in every year. The UEFA Cup had more teams from the top leagues although the leagues were more evenly matched in those days overall anyway. It was the Cup Winners Cup winners who played in the European Super Cup and sometimes won it though. At a guess (without analysing the results, and not thinking about the ones I know very much) the UEFA Cup might be tougher to make the final in but the Cup Winners Cup potentially had some better top teams. On average maybe like you say answer 1 is CWC and 2 is UC.
Anderlecht won the CWC in 1976 and 1978 and did come 2nd in Belgium in 76/77: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976–77_Belgian_First_Division So that's an example of what I mean I suppose. Tottenham played Ajax and Barcelona in the 1981/82 CWC and then Bayern Munich in the 1982/83 CWC. Although they also played Bayern again in the UC in 1983/84 (after Feyenoord earlier too): I think winning the cup, in England anyway, was seen as the better achievement as compared to coming 2nd. Although the better team would be considered to come 2nd rather than mid-table and win the cup in most cases (it was after the European ban anyway, but Coventry won the cup in 1987 and Wimbledon in 1988).
Thanks that's a good point about the cup winners cup taking precedence, and also that the winner competed in the European super cup (it seems then it was at least officially seen as more valuable than the UEFA cup) My main question mark about the level of play is that to me league standings usually represent a teams quality more accurately than a cup win, and also obviously that there were more teams involved. I know its an extreme example but look for instance at west ham winning the fa cup from the second division in 1980. I guess its very much tied to how hard teams played to win their national cup. Obviously in England the fa cup was very big, but how valued were the likes of the coppa Italia, the copa del rey (or whatever it was called back then), ect
Yeah, I think generally it would be variable and would depend on which team had won the cup in each country. That's true what you say about the FA Cup being more highly valued than some others although I suppose the 'underdog' teams also had a greater incentive to win it and sometimes did. Again without checking, but I guess a top 3 team often did win Italian or Spanish cups etc and maybe some very good Eastern European teams (Dynamo Kiev for example when they went on to win the CWC in 1975 and 1986) would win their domestic cup and miss out on the league. I suppose in those days, in England at least, the financial rewards that could be used to buy players and certainly the feelgood factor within the squad and club could be better after winning the cup than after coming 2nd (top UEFA Cup place) in the league. I guess if the Champions won the cup (double, which is rare) then the team they beat which could be a top 2 or 3 team would enter the CWC (haven't double-checked that just now though). Also teams that won European competitions stayed in them for the following year so you could have 2 top clubs from one country in the CWC, and in theory they could be the teams that come 2nd and 3rd in the league (if a team from the same country won the EC the previous season too then I guess the top team entering the UEFA Cup could have come 5th in the league by my calculations - that would be very rare or never happened though and often it could be 2nd to 5th in the UEFA Cup I think). Using Tottenham as an example again (I know you're an Arsenal fan lol, sorry) I know they were in contention for the 1981/82 1st Division and I remember Steve Perryman cited their European games as one reason they fell away when there was a programme about their 1981/82 season on ESPN Classic - so they went on to win the cup again but fell away a bit in the league near the end.
Don't get me wrong though, im not saying the cups in other countries weren't seen as important. I don't know, i'm posing the question.
I think maybe they weren't the same as 'events' but probably top teams still tried to win them, especially if they weren't winning the league (though a double in any country would also be great). The cup final wasn't the season finale in every country - still this game for example seems to be a big game (from CL era but before the CWC had been abolished - Barcelona also won that competition in the same season ofc):
In the past, there was not much difference, even though a common view was: EC >= UEFA cup >= CWC Equivalent to WC >= Euro >= Copa ... From early 2000's on ward, since UEFA (platini) did change the competition broader and more teams that made UCL become bigger and bigger then UEFA cup. As the result CWC became forgotten and now UCL was like WC, while UEFA cup was like confed cup LOL
I think both questions depend on the country and the time period. It's an 'easy' answer but I feel it's true. In old magazines like from my home country or World Soccer too it was a recurring debate/question which competition was the strongest or most prestigious. Even back then it was not a 'settled' issue and variable to fluctuations in time, I feel. The prestige of the CWC was definitely also grounded on the premise of the prestige of the domestic Cup. In bygone eras we've seen some examples of club teams throwing away their league position solely for the sake of winning the domestic cup or CWC (West Ham United in 1975-76 is a very good example). This could also make the competition fairly strong: when multiple teams used all their efforts and resources for winning the trophy (cup or CWC). The weakness was ofc that surprise teams could make it to the CWC (because the cup is knock-out rather than a league format). That was not only true for the bigger leagues but for the smaller leagues as well. Or Videoton, Dundee United and Goteborg playing UEFA Cup finals Tomorrow I'll take a look at the legendary goalscorers I think, and who has a better ratio in which competition.
This is obviously only among scorers who played some games in both the CWC and UC/FC (and I ignored the players who've played a negligible amount of games) Goalscorers with better ratio in CWC as UC Santillana Rensenbrink Altobelli Filipovic Hakan Sukur Ronaldo (Luis Nazario de Lima) Vialli Lubanski Roberto Baggio Lohr Jari Litmanen Van der Kuijlen Denis Law Nene Krankl Carew Warzycha John Bosman Oleg Blokhin Yuran Ronald Koeman Rufer Volkert Fernando Gomes Mendonca John Toshack Uwe Seeler Hamrin Pacult Rush Savic Casiraghi Flo Goalscorers with better ratio in UC as CWC Fillipo Inzaghi Henrik Larsson Allan Simonsen Ulf Kirsten Ferenc Bene Karl-Heinz Rummenigge Luc Nilis Weah Torbjorn Nilsson Florian Albert Waldo Van Basten Peter Lorimer Dennis Bergkamp Nedved Platini Dieter Hoeness Luis Enrique Figo Luis Aragones Klinsmann Bettega Nikolaidis Lex Schoenmaker Vujovic Saravakos Rexach Verheyen Wark Lambert Zaldua Panov B. Charlton Sparwasser Ray Kennedy Michael Laudrup Goalscorers with fairly similar ratio Gerd Muller (0.79 and 0.80) Eusebio Heynckes Morientes Papin (some more might be included in this category) http://www.rsssf.com/players/players-in-ec.html I know that's not without flaws but it provides some sort of a (rough/unpolished) idea. It's also good to consider that naturally the chance was larger to play UC matches as CWC games, and many have played more UC games as in the CWC. The UEFA Cup also consisted of more rounds, hence more games too. And we know that playing more games tends to press down the scoring ratio... In any case, there are many great goalscorers who have had a better ratio in the UEFA Cup as Cup Winners Cup (easier to score??) but also the other way around.