2008–09 UEFA Cup

The UEFA Cup 2008/ 09 was the 38th edition of the competition and was Shakhtar Donetsk 2-1 aet won against Werder Bremen. The finale was held at the Şükrü Saracoglu Stadium in Istanbul on May 20, 2009. This season 's UEFA Cup was held for the last time under that name.

Mode

Entitled to participate were all the clubs who had occupied one of the matters governed by the UEFA five year ranking UEFA Cup places in the past to end the season.

To keep the travel costs for the clubs low, all the teams were divided into three groups as in the previous year: Northern Europe, Central Europe and Southern Europe. In Torgleichstand after return game initially decided the number of away goals scored, then an extension was reached no decision on this after two periods of 15 minutes was followed by a penalty shootout. The last time to qualified eleven clubs on the UEFA Intertoto Cup for the second qualifying round, as it was 2008 the last time discharged. In Sixteenth-finals then met as yet had the eight third group of the Champions League group stage for the participants.

First qualifying round

The first legs took place on 31 July 2008 on 17 July, the return games.

Second qualifying round

The SSC Napoli, Deportivo La Coruña, SC Braga, the Grasshopper Club Zurich, VfB Stuttgart, FC Vaslui, Stade Rennes, SK Sturm Graz, Rosenborg Trondheim, Aston Villa and IF Elfsborg qualified via the UEFA Intertoto Cup 2008 for the 2. qualifying round. With the 37 winning teams from the first qualifying round, there were the following encounters.

The first legs took place on 28 August 2008 on 14 August, the return games.

1 Because of hostilities in Georgia, the game should be laid in Turkey, WIT Georgia Tbilisi however, could not travel. The decision was now in a single game. Furthermore, there was no away goals rule, that is, in a match, the game would have gone directly into extra time.

First round

At the first round, 80 teams took part. It was played at 16-18. September and 30 September / 2 October 2008.

Group stage

Case of a tie, the following criteria chosen:

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Round of

In the Round of the eight group winners were drawn against the eight third-placed, with a renewed clash between two teams of the same group was prevented. The eight group runners were randomly assigned eight participants from the UEFA Champions League 2008 /09. These were Girondins Bordeaux, Werder Bremen, Shakhtar Donetsk, Marseille, Aalborg BK, Fiorentina, Dynamo Kiev and Zenit St Petersburg. In this round, teams clashed not a country. From the second round such restrictions no longer apply.

The first legs took place on 18-19. February, the return legs on 26 February 2009.

Second round

The first legs took place on 12 March and the return matches on 18-19. March 2009.

Quarterfinals

The first legs took place on 16 April 2009 on April 9, the return games.

Semifinal

The first legs took place on May 7, April 30, the return games. A special event took place in the semi-final game HSV - Werder Bremen: the intermediate 1:3 was achieved after a corner. This was, however, only came about because the ball had previously been distracted by a paper ball.

Final

The UEFA Cup final in 2009 was the first, which took place on non- European soil. Istanbul had indeed already the Champions League Final 2005 aligned Ataturk Olympic Stadium, however, is the district of Kadıköy where the record champions Fenerbahçe Istanbul is located on the Asian side of the city. Due to the drawn semi-finals was already clear after the quarter-finals that the final would be a German -Ukrainian duel.

Bremen coach Thomas Schaaf was plagued by great staff concerns. Superstar Diego and Hugo Almeida were locked, Mertesacker injured. After initial sampling took the game to gain momentum, both teams played at eye level, where Donetsk showed the abgeklärtere game system. Bremer presented with increasing playing time on the playing style of Ukrainians and had the event under control. Merely they found no remedy for the well-organized coverage of the Ukrainians. Out of nowhere, but then dropped the gate for Donetsk: Council was adapted from his own half to the front, where Fritz misjudged and Luiz Adriano arrived at the ball. The Brazilian was able to prevail against Naldo and out just the right pass over meadow away into the goal ( 25 ). In the 35th minute Naldo met with a 30- yard free-kick. Bremen sat by now, but could not prevail decisively to. In the second passage to Bremen initially looked again on the defensive. Donetsk was the trend-setting team, but was not determined enough. In the final phase had on both side error prevention a top priority. So it went into overtime. Donetsk had play again, but was not mandatory. Bremen was solid and waited for errors of the opponent. But in 97th minute, Srna broke through on the right side and passed into the middle to Jadson, who transformed from eleven meters directly into the lower left corner. Although meadow was my turn, but could not parry. Werder now had to respond. The Ukrainians played from now only on time. The Brazilians of Donetsk Mark injuries every minute, several times even without the action of the opponent. Bremen vehemently urged to compensation. After 111 minutes when substitute Tziolis came to the shot, but the ball is stroked by a whisker wide of the right post. In the final minute Pizarro brought the ball still in the gate below, but according to referee Medina Cantalejo the Peruvians had previously played foul.

Top scorers

See also: List of scorers of the UEFA Europa League