THE Uefa Cup's life is drawing peacefully to a close, and ITV 4 is in there at the death.
How many of us were in there with the digital channel for Thursday night's semi-finals is another matter, because it is hard for most British football fans
to work up any real enthusiasm about either an all-Ukrainian clash or one involving two German teams. It was probably hard for ITV as well, and they would have far preferred Manchester City or some other English club with a sizeable following to get through to the last four at least, but they pressed bravely on and screened both matches back to back, with Shakhtar Donetsk versus Dynamo Kiev preceding the meeting of Werder Bremen and Hamburg.
They could not resist a few mentions of the Champions League, of course, and in fact it took presenter Matt Smith an estimated 4 seconds to make his first mention of the competition. "This evening we'll find out who'll be in the final in Istanbul," he said, referring to the forthcoming venue for the last-ever match in the Uefa Cup. "We already know who'll be in Rome."
Cue a brief look at the games involving Chelsea, Barcelona, Manchester United and Arsenal, a subject to which Smith and studio guest Andy Townsend would return throughout the evening. We might normally wish to make an accusation of parochialism at this stage, but in all honesty there was little to be said about the Shakhtar-Dynamo game, for example, that had not already been said by match commentator Clive Tyldesley and analyst Matt Holland.
It would have been nice, though, to have been told a little bit more about Ukrainian football, about the clubs involved, and maybe about the city in which the match was played. Instead, during his introduction Tyldesley told us that no Ukrainian team has ever reached the Uefa final. Then later on we were told that Dynamo had got to the semi-finals of the Champions League ten years ago, and, later still, Tyldesley told us that this was in fact the first time any team from that country had even been in the semi-final. Then at full-time, for the benefit of those of us unable to grasp the implications of that information, he announced that Shakhtar were the first Ukrainian team to get to the final.
All of which was true enough, but mention might have been made of the fact that, under the late, great Valery Lobanovsky, Dynamo Kiev won two Cup Winners' Cups, in 1975 and 1986. This is relevant on two counts – first, because the Cup Winners' Cup was officially not abolished but incorporated into the Uefa Cup after the 1999 final, and second, because the 1975 victory was the first time a club from the then Soviet Union had won a European trophy. So it wasn't as if Shakhtar were breaking entirely new ground.
Then again, the first semi was treated as little more than a warm-up for the German match, and indeed would have been taken off screen and switched to the ITV website if it had gone into extra-time. Thankfully, Ilsinho scored the winner for Shakhtar with two minutes to go, so the match did not run over beyond kick-off time in Hamburg.
Will we miss the Uefa Cup when it's gone? It has certainly lost some of its lustre in recent years, with Rangers' improbable stumble to the final 12 months ago and Middlesbrough's in 2006 proving you could go a long way in the competition without having a great team.
But the Europa League does not sound like an improvement. For a start, it has the word 'league' in its name – what is it with Uefa that they fail to understand the attraction of proper knockout matches? And it incorporates the Inter-Toto, which is one of the worst beginnings to life any new entity could have.
There have certainly been some enthralling Uefa games on our screens over the years. Porto's 3-2 win over Celtic in 2003 was one of them, though for dramatic impact it was dwarfed by Liverpool's 5-4 golden-goal victory against Alaves in 2001.
The competition also enhanced Tottenham's reputation as cup specialists. They won the first, two-legged final back in 1972, and lifted the trophy again 12 years later.
In terms of British achievements in the event, however, Ipswich Town's victory in 1981 must rank as the best, simply because they were a small, low-budget club who played some really attractive football.
No Scottish club has ever won the Uefa Cup, or ever will now. In addition to the appearances by the Old Firm this century, the only other time one of our teams got to the final was when Dundee United lost to Gothenburg over two legs in 1987.
If memory serves it was BBC Scotland which showed both legs. A friend and I watched it on his shoogly portable black and white. Known for being careful with his pennies, he had bought a carry-out for the occasion – one can of Kestrel lager each. "Jim McLean would approve," he said in attempted justification of this parsimony.
