![]() A Brief History Of The UEFA Europa League The UEFA Cup was the original brainchild of Switzerland's Ernst Thommen, Italy's Ottorino Barrasi - both future FIFA vice-presidents - and England's Sir Stanley Rous, the future president of FIFA. Their idea was to organise a tournament for representative sides from cities in Europe that regularly organised trade fairs. The concept was agreed upon and the forerunner to the UEFA Cup, namely the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup was founded on 18 April 1955, two weeks after the founding of the European Champion Clubs' Cup. The first Fairs Cup involved teams from Barcelona, Basle, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Lausanne, Leipzig, London, Milan and Zagreb. Originally conceived as a two-year tournament, it lasted for three, during which time 23 games were played. Barcelona, using players purely from FC Barcelona, beat a London representative side 8-2 on aggregate in the final. For the second tournament the organisers reverted to club participation with the knockout format continuing, but the teams still had to come from cities staging trade fairs. Sixteen clubs took part in the 1958-60 tournament, after which it was staged on an annual basis. By 1962 the number of entrants had risen to 32; there were 48 in 1967; 60 in 1968; and, as from the 1969-70 season, there were 64 teams on the starting grid. There are now more than 100. The 1971/72 tournament, was the first to be known as the UEFA Cup. From 1999/2000, domestic cup winners also qualified for the UEFA Cup after the decision was made to end the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup. In addition, clubs eliminated from the third qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League and the eight third-placed finishers at the end of the group stage of the same competition move across to contest the UEFA Cup. The competition also includes three Fair Play representatives, three UEFA Intertoto Cup 'winners' and winners of some selected domestic league cup competitions. From the 2009–10 season, the competition has been rebranded as the UEFA Europa League in a bid to increase the competition's profile. As well as changing the competition's name, an extra 16 teams now qualify for the main stages of the competition, with the group stage now consisting of 12 groups of four teams (in a double round robin), with the top two placed teams in each group progressing. The competition then progresses in much the same way as the previous format, with 4 rounds of two-legged knockout rounds and a one-off final held at a neutral ground meeting UEFA's Elite stadium criteria. |
Previous Winners Of The UEFA Europa League UEFA Europa League 2011 2010 Dublin Arena, Ireland Hamburg, Germany - Atlético Madrid 2–1 Fulham UEFA Cup 1972 - 2009 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978 1977 1976 1975 1974 1973 1972 Istanbul Turkey City of Manchester Std Hampden Park Eindhoven Estadio Jose Alvalade Gothenburg Seville Rotterdam Dortmund Copenhagen Moscow Paris Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Shakhtar Donetsk 2 – 1 Werder Bremen (aet) Zenit St Petersburg 2-0 Rangers Espanyol 2-2 Sevilla (3-1 Pens) Sevilla 4-0 Middlesbrough CSKA Moscow 3-1 Sporting Valencia CF 2-0 Olympique Marseille Porto 3-2 Celtic Feyenoord 3-2 Borussia Dortmund Liverpool 5-4 Alavés Galatasaray 0-0 Arsenal (4-1 Pens) Parma 3-0 Olympique Marseille Internazionale 3-0 Lazio Schalke 1-1 Internazionale (4-1 Pens) Bayern 5-1 Bordeaux Parma 2-1 Juventus Internazionale 2-0 Austria Salzburg Juventus 6-1 Borussia Dortmund Ajax 2-2 Torino (Away Goals) Internazionale 2-1 Roma Juventus 3-1 Fiorentina Napoli 5-4 VfB Stuttgart Leverkusen Gothenburg 2-1 Dundee United Real Madrid 5-3 FC Köln Real Madrid 3-1 Videoton Tottenham 2-2 Anderlecht (4-3 Pens) Anderlecht 2-1 1-0 Benfica Gothenburg 4-0 1-0 Hamburger SV Ipswich 5-4 AZ '67 Frankfurt 3-3 Borussia MG (Away Goals) Borussia MG 2-1 Crvena zvezda PSV 3-0 Bastia Juventus 2-2 Athletic Bilbao (Away Goals) Liverpool 4-3 FC Brugge Borussia MG 5-1 FC Twente Feyenoord 4-2 Tottenham Hotspur Liverpool 3-2 Borussia MG Tottenham 3-2 Wolves Wanderers European Fairs Cup 1967 - 1971 1971 1970 1969 1968 1967 Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Leeds United 3-3 Juventus (Away Goals) Arsenal 4-3 Anderlecht Newcastle United 6-2 SC Budapest Leeds United 1-0 Ferencvaros Dynamo Zagreb 2-0 Leeds United The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup 1958 - 1966 1966 1965 1964 1963 1962 1961 1960 1958 Two Leg Final Turin Nou Camp Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Two Leg Final Barcelona 4-3 Real Zaragoza Ferencváros 1-0 Juventus Real Zaragosa 2-1 Valencia Valencia 4-1 Dinamo Zagreb Valencia 7-3 Barcelona AS Roma 4-2 Birmingham Barcelona 5-2 Birmingham City Barcelona 8-2 London |