Women's Cup road to be paved
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Article summary
The 2007/08 UEFA Women's Cup draw will be made at 11.45CET on Thursday with a record 45 clubs aiming for the title claimed last season by England's Arsenal LFC.
Article body
The qualifying draws for the 2007/08 UEFA Women's Cup are made on Thursday 5 July at 11.45CET with a record 45 clubs aiming for the title claimed last season by Arsenal LFC.
First qualifying round
Arsenal, along with former winners Umeå IK and 1. FFC Frankfurt plus Brøndby IF and Kolbotn IL, are excused the first qualifying round as seeds. The 40 other sides, including for the first time representatives from Georgia and Malta, will be split into ten groups of four, representing one of three geographical sections. The first two sections, A and B, will have three groups, each with one team apiece from the four seeding pots which will include a pre-selected mini-tournament host (see clubs in bold in the table below). Section C will contain four groups of as many sides, again featuring a mini-tournament host. The ten pools will be played from 9-14 August.
Road to final
The ten group winners and the one best runner-up then join the leading five teams in the second qualifying round. Arsenal will be top seeds in Group B1, Umeå in B2, Frankfurt in B3, and Brøndby and Kolbotn in B4, with the rest of the clubs to be allocated according to the draw made on Thursday. After the second qualifying round matches from 11-16 October, the top two from each group will progress to the two-legged quarter-finals on 14/15 and 21/22 November. The semi-finals are scheduled for 29/30 March and 5/6 April 2008, and the final on 17 and 24 May.
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