The competition was traditionally a pure knockout tournament. 1 it is considered the second most important international competition for european clubs, after the uefa champions league. Luis suárez (internazionale milano & spain) 1988:
They were the first italian team to reach a uefa cup/europa league final since parma in 1999.
Ignacio zoco and amancio amaro (1964, real madrid and spain) and manfred kaltz and horst hrubesch (1980, hamburg and west germany). See full list on en.wikipedia.org What is european soccer cup? Qualification for the competition is based on uefa coefficients, with better entrance rounds being offered to the more successful nations.