UEFA Cup 2000–01

2000–01 UEFA Cup

Westfalenstadion, Dortmund hosted the final.
Dates	8 August 2000 – 16 May 2001
Final positions
Champions	Liverpool (3rd title)
Runners-up	Alavés
← 1999–2000 2001–02 →

In perhaps the most bizarre European final ever, the 2000–01 UEFA Cup was won by Liverpool in a dramatic golden goal final against Deportivo Alavés for their third title in the competition. It completed a unique cup treble for the club, as they also won the FA Cup and the League Cup that season. The conclusion of the tournament by a golden goal is the only instance in any of the major European club cup competitions until the abolition of the rule in 2002. This is the first time San Marino had a team enter the UEFA Cup.

Liverpool were the first English side of the post Heysel era (English clubs had been banned from European competitions between 1985 and 1990 as a result of the Heysel disaster) to win the trophy; the previous English winners were Tottenham Hotspur in 1984. It was also Liverpool's first European trophy of the post Heysel era.

A total of 138 teams from 51 UEFA associations participated in the 2000–01 UEFA Cup. Associations are allocated places according to their 1999 UEFA league coefficient.

Below is the qualification scheme for the 2000–01 UEFA Cup:

A UEFA Cup place is vacated when a team qualify for both the Champions League and the UEFA Cup, or qualify for the UEFA Cup by more than one method. When a place is vacated, it is redistributed within the national association by the following rules:<

The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:

¹ This match was played at Prater Stadium in Vienna instead of at Red Star's home ground in Belgrade because Leicester City club leadership managed to convince UEFA that playing in FR Yugoslavia somehow posed a security risk to them due to the then political situation in the country. The UEFA's decision came on 12 September 2000 – only nine days before the game's originally scheduled date (21 September 2000). UEFA's decision to not only move the tie to a neutral location, but to also postpone it for a week was a highly controversial precedent since no other team that was drawn to play Yugoslav teams that season (including F.C. Porto and Celta de Vigo among others) got similar treatment.[1]