History of German Teams in the UEFA Cup

Ger­many have been one of the most suc­cess­ful nations in the UEFA cup‘s his­tory, with Ger­man clubs hav­ing won six cups dur­ing the com­pe­ti­tions his­tory. The first Ger­man team to reach the final of the UEFA Cup were Borus­sia Mönchenglad­bach, in 1973. At the time, the final was held in two legs, with the team being beaten 3 — 0 by Liv­er­pool at the first (away) leg, and 2 — 0 on the sec­ond (home leg). Two years later, the team became the first Ger­man team to win the com­pe­ti­tion, in the 1975 finals. The first leg was played at home, which was a 0–0 draw. In the sec­ond leg, at Diek­man Sta­dion, the team beat the Nether­lands‘ Twente 5 — 1. The team con­tin­ued their early suc­cess in the com­pe­ti­tion by also becom­ing the first team to win the UEFA cup twice, in 1979. The first leg, against Red Star Bel­grade at Sta­dion Crvena Zvezda, the team drew 1 — 1, and won the sec­ond leg at home, scor­ing the only goal of the game.

The fol­low­ing year, Ger­man teams were respon­si­ble for the first final of the com­pe­ti­tion to fea­ture two clubs from the same nation. Borus­sia Mönchenglad­bach reached the final again, play­ing against Ein­tra­cht Frank­furt. The first game of the final, played at Mönchenglad­bach, the home team won 3 — 2. The sec­ond game, at Frank­furt, was won 1 — 0 by the home team. This resulted in an even aggre­gate, with a vic­tory for Ein­tra­cht Frank­furt, on away goals. Ham­burg reached the finals in 1982, squar­ing up against IFK Göte­borg of Swe­den. The Ger­man team lost both games, being defeated 1 — 0 at home in the first game, and 3 — 0 in the sec­ond game. It was not until 1986 that another Ger­man team would reach the final, with Köln being unsuc­cess­ful against Real Madrid. Despite win­ning the sec­ond (home) match 2 — 0, they had lost the first one 5 — 1, and so lost on aggregate.

Three more Ger­man teams reached the finals dur­ing the ‘dual final‘ era — Bayer Lev­erkusen in 1988, VfB Stuttgart in 1989, Borus­sia Dort­mund in 1994, Bay­ern Munich in 1996 and Schalke 04, in 1997. Of these, the Ger­man side was vic­to­ri­ous in 1988, 1996 and 1997, mark­ing a very suc­cess­ful period for Ger­man sec­ond tier Euro­pean foot­ball. Start­ing with the 1998 sea­son, the for­mat of the final has changed to just have one game, played at a ‘neu­tral‘ sta­dium. In this time, Ger­man teams have been less suc­cess­ful than pre­vi­ously, hav­ing reached the final only twice: Borus­sia Dort­mund in 2002 (los­ing to Feyeno­ord), and Werder Bre­men in 2009 (beaten 2 — 1 by Shakhtar Donetsk after extra time). If you‘re think­ing of bet­ting on Euro­pean foot­ball, then hav­ing an idea of the his­tory of teams in rel­e­vant tour­na­ments can be a good way of assess­ing how good UEFA cup odds actu­ally are.