UEFA gala in Monaco Fifty years of the champions' competition ...

OSC Lille
(black shirt)
and Schalke 04,
winners of the
2004 UEFA
Intertoto Cup.
AFP/RIOPA
BONGARTS
Meetings
and other activities
Dialogue
with the coaches
THE 6TH ELITE CLUB COACHES’ FORUM TOOK PLACE AT THE HOUSE OF EUROPEAN FOOTBALL IN NYON ON 3 SEPTEMBER.
Carlo Ancelotti (AC Milan),
Fabio Capello (Juventus), Sir Alex
Ferguson (Manchester United), Vahid
Halilhodzic (Paris St-Germain), Javier
Irureta (Deportivo La Coruña), Paul
Le Guen (Olympique Lyonnais), Felix
Magath (Bayern Munich), José
Mourinho (Chelsea), Claudio Ranieri
(Valencia CF) and Arsène Wenger
(Arsenal FC) joined UEFA’s Technical
Director Andy Roxburgh and Gérard
Houllier, representing UEFA’s Technical
Study Group, to discuss some
of the topical issues surrounding elite
club football. The fact alone that
they found the time in their busy
Villarreal
(with Roger Garcia,
in Yellow)
will be trying
to repeat their exploits
of last season
in the UEFA Cup.
schedules to attend this meeting
shows the importance that they
attach to such an opportunity to
express their ideas and opinions to
the competition organisers directly.
Even though all of their suggestions
are not necessarily adopted, because
the points of view of other parties
are also taken into consideration,
the coaches have already won the
case in matters such as increasing the
number of doping controls and
revamping the UEFA Cup.
This year, the coaches
expressed their views on subjects such
as passive offside, yellow-card sus-
AFP/JORDAN
pensions, the number of players
on the bench and double penaltyred
card punishment.
The next edition of The
Technician, which will be published
with the November issue of
uefadirect, will provide a detailed
report on the forum. It will also give
an account of the 6th European
National Coaches’ Conference in
Stockholm from 20 to 22 September.
UEFA Intertoto Cup
winners
The finals of the UEFA
Intertoto Cup were played on 10
and 24 August. Two of the three
winners also qualified for the
first round of the UEFA Cup by
the same route last year.
By repeating their
success of last year,
Schalke 04 and Villarreal
– who beat Slovan
Liberec and Atletico
de Madrid respectively in this years’
finals – join VfB Stuttgart, winners
in 2000 and 2002, as the only clubs
to have won this summer competition
twice.
The third winning club of
this season is OSC Lille, who beat
Leiria in the finals, making it the
tenth win in the UEFA Intertoto Cup
for French clubs, a record which is
all the more unique for having been
established by ten different clubs.
For Germany, it was the sixth win
(by four clubs), while Spain has won
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