Sorry if this is described somewhere else…. can someone tell me what the format is for uefa cup as the rounds move on? right now, there's 24 matches inside of 4 "groups" for the 2nd round (48 teams). next, there's the 3rd rnd, 4th rnd, quarters, semis, and final. obviously, they can't keep halving this 48 to get down to 2. do they take the 24 winners of rnd 2, then add 8 wildcard teams (from the losers in this 2nd round….maybe 2 from each group) back into the mix for round 3? meaning, that your up to 32 teams and they get boiled down to the 2 team finals from there? perhaps the 24 winners move on into 12 matches for round 3 and then they take the winners there and add back in 4 losers to get 16 teams into the 4th round. …help, having no luck finding where its described on the uefa.com website. p.s. GO FULHAM!
The 8 third place teams from the Champions League Phase 1 groups go into the UEFA Cup, taking the total from 24 to 32. Not sure what will happen next year with the new format.
Yeah, The 24 after stage 2 are thrown in with the 8 3rd place teams in CL, making an even 32. It is viewed by many that UEFA will meet at the end of year and make AT LEAST the following changes: 1) Get rid of the 3rd place CL tie in. 2) Give the UEFA Cup holder a spot in the following season's CL group stage (same automatic bid as the CL cup holder, basically). 3) Introduce some type of group stage like CL.
great, thanks! is this how the 3rd round draw works then? *32 teams *4 groups of 8 teams each (thus, 4 home-home matches each group) *2 teams from the 8 champion leaguers get seeded into each group. *remaining 24 uefa teams get reshuffled according to their seedings *the top 8 uefas become the other 8 seeded teams (along w/ c.l. seeded teams) *3rd round draw happens just like the one for the 2nd round. I don't really know how they create the ratings (I saw the numbers on the website)….but is it possible that some teams coming from champ league have lower seedings than some in uefa and become "unseeded" teams in the 3rd round draw?
There are no group phases in the UEFA Cup like the CL has. Each and every round is the same up until the final -- a home and home series between the two teams drawn against one another. The final is a single game. It appears that after each round, half the teams are seeded and half the teams are not. A team from the seeded group is drawn against the team from the unseeded group for the matchups. I say it appears, because I can't find confirmation of this. As for the seedings, the regulations describe how teams are seeded and it is based upon their country coefficient and the performance of the club in UEFA competitions over a 5 year period. So it is quite likely (although not certain) that the 8 teams from the CL joining the competition in the next round would likely be the highest rated teams.
yeah, i understand there are no group phases and that its all home-n-home stuff. however, during the draw...it is divided into 4 groups based on each team's "coefficient". here's the link from a press release: UEFA Cup Draw at Noon here's how it looks like they do it: 1. assign coefficients to every team (thanks for the explanation on that) 2. make 4 "groups" 3. take top 4 teams and pick them randomly, 1 to each "group" 4. repeat for next 4 teams, and so on, 'til all 48 are distributed to each group (12/gp). 5. take top 6 teams in each group and call them "seeded". the rest are "unseeded" 6. make 2 pots for group 1, "seeded" and "unseeded". do the same for gp 2, 3 & 4. 7. for gp 1, draw at random a team from each pot. this becomes a home-and-away matchup. 8. repeat 5x to finish group 1 pairings. 9. repeat for groups 2, 3, & 4. after all team pairings are decided, they throw away the whole "group" thing. its only for the purposes of the draw. my guess is that they keep this 4 "group" format as they distribute out the 32 teams for round 3 (8 each group this time instead of 12, like the 2nd). suppose i was just looking for confirmation. wow, if S.S. Lazio (ITA) has a 106.334 coeff. [high end of 2nd rnd] and APOEL Nicosia FC (CYP) has a 4.666 [low end]....i wonder what some of those teams in the Intertoto had for coeff's on the low end?