The 2008–09 UEFA Cup was the 38th season of the UEFA Cup football tournament. The final was played at the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium, home ground of Fenerbahçe, in Istanbul on 20 May 2009. It was the final season to use the UEFA Cup format; starting in 2009, the competition was known as the UEFA Europa League. Ukraine's Shakhtar Donetsk beat Werder Bremen 2–1 after extra time to win their first European title. Zenit Saint Petersburg were the defending champions but were eliminated by Udinese in the Round of 16.

Association team allocation

A total of 157 teams from 53 UEFA associations participated in the 2008–09 UEFA Cup. Associations were allocated places according to their 2007 UEFA league coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2002–03 to 2006–07. Below is the qualification scheme for the 2008–09 UEFA Cup: plus

Association ranking

Distribution

Since the winners of the 2007–08 UEFA Cup, Zenit Saint Petersburg, qualified for the 2008–09 UEFA Champions League through domestic performance, the title holder spot reserved for them in the playoff round was vacated. As a result, the following changes to the default allocation system were made to compensate for the vacant title holder spot in the group stage:

Redistribution rules

A UEFA Cup place is vacated when a team qualifies for both the Champions League and the UEFA Cup, or qualifies for the UEFA Cup by more than one method. When a place is vacated, it is redistributed within the national association by the following rules:

Teams

Round and draw dates

The calendar shows the dates of the rounds and draw.

Qualifying rounds

First qualifying round

Second qualifying round

First round

The draw, which was conducted by UEFA General Secretary David Taylor, was held on 29 August 2008 at 13:00 CET in Monaco.

Group stage

The draw for the group stage of the 2008–09 UEFA Cup was held at UEFA Headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, on 7 October 2008. The 40 teams in the draw were divided into five pots based on their UEFA coefficients. The eight teams with the highest UEFA coefficient were allocated to Pot 1, the next eight teams to Pot 2, and so on. One team from each pot was drawn for each group, with the restriction that no team could be drawn with one from the same country. The top three teams (highlighted in green) of each group qualified for the next round. Based on paragraph 6.06 in the UEFA regulations for the current season, if two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied to determine the rankings:

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Knockout stage

In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.

Bracket

Round of 32

Round of 16

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Top goalscorers

Source: Hammond, Mike, ed (2009). The European Football Yearbook 2009/10. London: Carlton Books. ISBN 978-1-84732-360-6.