Europa League takes tortuous trip to Bucharest
Reuters - Tuesday 08 May 2012, 01:59
It started last June with teams
such as Ulises, The New Saints and IF Fuglafjordur, became
bogged down in a complex legal dispute and featured cameos from
Manchester United and Manchester City.
More than 10 tortuous months, two disqualifications and 202
matches later, the Europa League reaches its climax on Wednesday
with a meeting between two Spanish sides, both coached by
Argentines, in Romania.
Finalists Athletic Bilbao and Atletico Madrid, the 2010
winners, were both delighted to be in Europe's second-string
club competition but the same could not be said for English
champions United.
Manager Sir Alex Ferguson said that taking part was a
"punishment" for his side, a remark which forced UEFA president
Michel Platini to leap to the defence of the Champions League's
less glamorous sibling.
"The world does not revolve around England, I like England a
lot, it's football is fantastic, it's supporters are wonderful
but you shouldn't criticise the Europa League just because
you've played in three Champions League finals," he retorted.
"The Europa League is a brilliant competition. I know Mr
Ferguson would have preferred to be in the Champions League but
so would many clubs who don't have that possibility."
The majority of European fans would probably place
themselves somewhere in between English indifference to the
competition and Platini's unbridled enthusiasm, though most
would struggle to unravel its bewildering complexities.
Put simply, the Europa League is the rebranded version of
the former UEFA Cup which itself started out as the Inter Cities
Fairs Cup and absorbed the old European Cup Winners Cup
somewhere along the line.
The Blizzard magazine suggested recently that the tournament
ought to be named "The Second-Tier Distribution of Teams as
Apportioned by Mathematical Coefficients Cup" to give fans a
real idea of what it truly represents.
The format is baffling enough, featuring four qualifying
rounds of two-leg ties, a group stage with a round-robin
mini-league format, four more phases of knockout ties and a
one-off final in neutral territory.
Teams can qualify by winning their domestic Cup, finishing
anywhere between second and sixth in their league, getting
knocked out of the Champions League or simply by being nice and
winning one of three places allocated to according to UEFA's
fair play rankings.
They enter the fray at any point between the first
qualifying round in June and the round-of-32 the following
February, depending on the ranking of their country's league in
UEFA's highly complex system of coefficients.
A total of 193 teams, from 52 of UEFA's member associations,
took part this season of which 33 parachuted in after
elimination at various stages of the Champions League. Unlucky
Liechtenstein is not represented as it does not have its own
league or Cup.
DEEPEST KAZAKHSTAN
The first qualifying round saw the part-timers of Faroe
Islands outfit NSI, whose stadium holds 500 people and was
deemed not up to UEFA standards, meet the Premier League
professionals of Fulham, who qualified via the fair play route.
Other early entrants included Kazakhstan's Irtysh Pavlodar,
whose stadium is closer to Mongolia and China than UEFA
headquarters in Nyon. They also claimed the distinction of
having also taken part in the Asian Champions League in the days
before UEFA defied geography by accepting Kazakhstan as a
member.
The honour of scoring the first goal of the 2011-12 UEFA
Europa League fell to Igor Voronkov who struck in the 11th
minute of FC Minsk's 1-1 draw at Olimpik-Suvalan PFK.
Several teams qualified only to miss out because they were
not granted a UEFA licence which is only forthcoming if clubs
meet complex rules regarding pitches, changing rooms, toilets
and media facilities.
Greek side Olympiakos Volos were kicked out after a
match-fixing scandal in their homeland and Sion followed for
defying UEFA and FIFA over a transfer ban imposed after they
poached a player from an Egyptian club.
The Swiss Super League club ignored the ban as they signed
six new players during the 2011 transfer window, then fielded
several of them in a fourth qualifying round tie against Celtic.
Having won that tie, Sion were duly expelled and defied UEFA
statutes by taking their case to a civil court in the same
canton as UEFA's headquarters.
At one point, Platini had to appear before a public
prosecutor to explain why UEFA had not complied with a
provisional ruling ordering Sion's reinstatement.
Sion eventually lost the case, saving UEFA the headache of
trying to insert them into a group phase which by then was
nearing completion.
BACK-AND-FORTH TRABZONSPOR
Athletic Bilbao, who began their campaign in the third
qualifying round in July, might not have got past the first
hurdle had Turkish champions Fenerbahce not been allegedly
caught up in a match-fixing scandal.
The 1977 UEFA Cup runners-up were held 0-0 at home by
Trabzonspor in their first leg but the Turkish provincial side
were then promoted to the Champions League after Fenerbahce were
expelled from the showpiece tournament.
Bilbao went straight through to the next round and never
looked back.
Trabzonspor, meanwhile, reached the Champions League group
stage, finished third and then found themselves back in the
Europa League as one of the eight teams who joined the
competition in February, alongside United and City.
From the knockout stages onwards, the competition grew in
momentum and many matches rivalled or surpassed the Champions
League in quality and drama which culminates in Wednesday's
mouth-watering clash.
After the winners lift the trophy, there will barely been
time for the excitement to die down before it all starts again
on July 5, just four days after the Euro 2012 final, with the
likes of Ordabasay, Pyunik and Cefn Druids.