This was the fifth consecutive year where a Dutch team won a European competition, and the first one outside of the European Cup. Feyenoord also broke a streak of six consecutive years of English clubs winning the UEFA Cup or the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup.
Association team allocation
A total of 64 teams from 31 UEFA member associations participate in the 1973–74 UEFA Cup. The original allocation scheme was as follows:
3 associations have four teams qualify.
3 associations have three teams qualify.
18 associations have two teams qualify.
7 associations have one team qualify.
Northern Ireland returned to the competition after a one-year absence. Scotland and Belgium were the two associations selected to have an extra third birth for this season, while France, Yugoslavia and Portugal went back to two qualified teams.
Wales: No national league existed in Wales before 1992 and the only competition organised by the Football Association of Wales was the Welsh Cup so Wales had just a single participant in European competitions, the winner (or best placed Welsh team as several English teams also competed) of the Welsh Cup which competed in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.
Albania: Albanian teams were absent from European competition from 1973 to 1978 due to the international isolation of the country during the communist rule of Enver Hoxha.[1]Besa would have qualified for the UEFA Cup by league position.
Teams
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for competition:
TH: Title holders
CW: Cup winners
CR: Cup runners-up
LC: League Cup winners
2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, etc.: League position
P-W: End-of-season European competition play-offs winners
England: Although the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup old entry criterium of 'one city, one team' had been dispensed with the creation of the UEFA Cup, the Football Association retained it in their regulations, only being changed after the end of the 1974–1975 season. Arsenal finished 2nd in the 1972–73 Football League but couldn't qualify for the UEFA Cup, as Tottenham Hotspur was deemed as London's representative team via their League Cup title, which took precedence. As a result, Wolverhampton Wanderers inherited the remaining UEFA Cup spot.
Schedule
The schedule of the competition: Matches were scheduled for Wednesdays, though some matches took place on Tuesdays, including the first leg of the final. Both legs of the first round match phase between VfB Stuttgart and Olympiakos Nicosia were played in the same week over three days, with the first leg being held on a Monday. Two other matches in the first leg of the first round, three matches were held on a Thursday and a Saturday, respectively.
