Playing in their first European final, PSV Eindhoven became the latest of the Grote Drie trio of big Dutch teams to win a European title. On the other hand, Bastia was the only French team to reach a UEFA Cup final until 1996.
Association team allocation
A total of 64 teams from 31 UEFA member associations participate in the 1977–78 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.
Poland and Switzerland were the two associations selected to have a third berth for this season, while Hungary and Romania went back to two qualified teams.
Wales: There was no national league 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]Skënderbeu 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
The schedule of the competition was as follows. Matches were scheduled for Wednesdays, except for five matches that were held on a Tuesday; one of them was the second leg of the final.
