page_title: 2008–09 UEFA Cup
section_title: First round
hierarchical_section_title: 2008–09 UEFA Cup / First round
caption_attribution_description: English: Number of teams per country in the first round of the 2008-09 UEFA Cup
context_page_description: The 2008–09 UEFA Cup was the 38th season of the UEFA Cup football tournament. The final was played at the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium, home ground of Fenerbahçe, in Istanbul on 20 May 2009. This season was the final one to use the UEFA Cup format; starting in 2009, the event was known as the UEFA Europa League. Ukraine's Shakhtar Donetsk beat Werder Bremen 2-1 after extra time to win their first European title. Zenit Saint Petersburg were the defending champions but were eliminated by Udinese in the Round of 16.
context_section_description: 32 teams entered the tournament at the first round, along with the 32 winners from the previous round and the 16 losers from the Champions League third qualifying round. The 80 teams were then split into eight groups of ten teams; five seeded teams and five unseeded teams. The draw was based on their coefficient ranking with one exception: no country can have multiple teams in any group.  Teams ranked 108 or higher were seeded, as were unranked teams from England and Spain.
  The draw, which was conducted by UEFA General Secretary David Taylor, was held on Friday, 29 August 2008 at 13:00 CET in Monaco. The matches were played on 18 September and 2 October 2008.
  Order of legs reversed.
  Order of legs reversed due to AC Omonia's ground-share fixture congestion.
  Played at Alvalade XXI, since Vitória FC's homeground at Setúbal does not meet UEFA criteria
  Order of legs reversed due to Spartak Moscow playing the same day in Moscow.
  Played at Borås Arena as Kalmar FF's home ground did not meet UEFA criteria.
  Nine of the 40 ties were won by the unseeded team.  The nine seeded losing teams, with their ranking, were: Everton (50), Rapid București (58), Beşiktaş (60), Sparta Prague (68), Dinamo București (69), Levski Sofia (80), Austria Wien (82), Rennes (97) and Hapoel Tel Aviv (108).
caption: The number of each teams from each nation which qualified for the First Round
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