Sven Goran Eriksson managed Manchester City will play in the UEFA Cup season next season, after the Eastlands club claimed the last UEFA Cup Spot by winning England’s Fair Play Award. The Premiership Fairplay Table can be seen here. As the table clearly shows, Manchester City are sixth with 1263 points. The top five, from first to fifth are Spurs, Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Everton. Spurs will play in the UEFA Cup thanks to their brilliant League Cup win over Avram Grant’s Chelsea. Liverpool, United and Arsenal are in the Champions League, and Everton finished fifth in the Premiership table, which meant that they took England’s solitary Premiership UEFA Cup spot.
UEFA Cup
How did Zenit St Petersburg make it to the UEFA Cup final ?
As you all might be knowing, Russian side Zenit St. Petersburg will meet Rangers in the final of the UEFA Cup 2007-08 (this season). Zenit upset FC Bayern, while Rangers beat Fiorentina on penalties. Zenit are coached by Dick Advocaat.
Here is a look at Zenit’s path to the final. A similar article for Rangers will follow.
Road to CoMS for Zenit St. Petersburg
Second Qualifying Round
First leg – Vion Zlate Moravce 0-2 Zenit St. Petersburg ( Erik Hagen, Alexsei Ionov)
Second leg- Zenit St. Petersburg 3-0 Vion Zlate Moravce (Pavel Pogrebnyak,Ilya Maksimov, Kim Dong Jin)
Zenit win 5-0 on aggregate
First round
First leg- Zenit 3-1 Standard ( Andrei Arshavin *2, Kim Dong Jin)
Second leg- Standard 1-1 Zenit St. Petersburg (Oguchi Onyewu/Pavel Pogrebnyak)
Zenit win 4-1 on aggregate.
Group Stage- Group A
Can Cardiff City get into Europe next season ?
Cardiff City, the only non English club to win the FA Cup, may be able to play in Europe next season if they can lift the trophy by beating Portsmouth in Wembley. The Championship side eliminated giant-killers Barnsley, who had knocked out both Liverpool and Chelsea earlier, in the semifinals by beating them 1-0, with Joe Ledley scoring. The Bluebirds had also beaten Middlesbrough in the sixth round. Under FA rules, the winners of the FA Cup get a UEFA Cup spot. But as Cardiff are a Welsh side, the Football Association are apparently not willing to accept them as one of England’s representatives.