6th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA
1976–77 UEFA Cup
Tournament details
Dates
8 September 1976 – 18 May 1977
Teams
64
Final positions
Champions
Juventus (1st title)
Runners-up
Athletic Bilbao
Tournament statistics
Matches played
126
Goals scored
399 (3.17 per match)
Attendance
2,810,845 (22,308 per match)
Top scorer(s)
Stan Bowles (Queens Park Rangers) 11 goals
← 1975–76
1977–78 →
International football competition
The 1976–77 UEFA Cup was the sixth season of the UEFA Cup, the third-tier club football competition organised by UEFA. The final was played over two legs at Stadio Comunale, Turin, Italy, and at San Mamés, Bilbao, Spain. It was won by Juventus of Italy, who defeated Athletic Bilbao of Spain on the away goals rule after a 2–2 aggregate draw to claim their first UEFA Cup title.
This was the first major European conquest for Juventus, having previously lost one European Cup final and two Inter-Cities Fairs' Cup finals. It was the first time that a team from Southern Europe had won the competition, and the last European title for an Italian team for seven years, which was their biggest international drought at club level until 2018.[1]
In their first European final, Athletic Bilbao was the first Spanish finalist in the UEFA Cup, and the only one until 1985. A Spanish club last reached the Inter-Cities Fairs' Cup final in 1966, which was also the last year with a Spanish title in Europe. Athletic became the fourth different Spanish side to lose at this stage in European competition ever since.
Association team allocation
[edit]
A total of 64 teams from 31 UEFA member associations participate in the 1976–77 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.
Hungary and Romania were the two associations selected to have an extra third birth for this season, while the Soviet Union and Sweden 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.[2] Vllaznia would have qualified for the UEFA Cup by league position.
Teams
[edit]
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
Qualified teams for 1976–77 UEFA Cup
Queens Park Rangers (2nd)
Manchester United (3rd)
Derby County (4th)
Manchester City (LC)
Köln (4th)
Eintracht Braunschweig (5th)
Schalke 04 (6th)
Kaiserslautern (7th)
Juventus (2nd)
Milan (3rd)
Inter Milan (4th)
Cesena (6th)
Barcelona (2nd)
Español (4th)
Athletic Bilbao (5th)
Videoton (2nd)
Újpest Dosza (3rd)
Budapest Honvéd (4th)
Dinamo București (2nd)
Târgu Mureș (3rd)
Sportul Studențesc (4th)
Feyenoord (2nd)
Ajax (3rd)
BFC Dynamo (2nd)
Magdeburg (3rd)
Shakhtar Donetsk (2nd)
Dynamo Moscow (3rd)
Dinamo Zagreb (3rd)
Red Star Belgrade (4th)
Celtic (2nd)
Hibernian (3rd)
Belenenses (3rd)
Porto (4th)
Slovan Bratislava (2nd)
Slavia Prague (3rd)
Molenbeek (3rd)
Lokeren (4th)
Tychy (2nd)
Wisła Kraków (3rd)
AEK Athens (2nd)
Olympiacos (3rd)
Nice (2nd)
Sochaux (3rd)
Akademik Sofia (3rd)
Lokomotiv Plovdiv (4th)
Öster (2nd)
Djurgården (3rd)
Basel (3rd)
Grasshoppers (4th)
Wacker Innsbruck (2nd)
Austria Salzburg (4th)
Fenerbahçe (2nd)
Adanaspor (4th)
Holbæk (2nd)
Næstved (3rd)
Brann (2nd)
IK Start (3rd)
Finn Harps (2nd)
Glentoran (2nd)
Hibernians (3rd)
KuPS Kuopio (2nd)
Fram (2nd)
Enosis Neon Paralimni (3rd)
Red Boys Differdange (2nd)
Schedule
[edit]
The schedule of the competition was as follows. Matches were scheduled for Wednesdays, though some matches took place on Tuesdays or Thursdays.