Intertoto Cup

With Euro 2008 taking up everybody's attention the 2008/09 Intertoto Cup kicked off this weekend.

The Intertoto Cup is a Summer competition that allows clubs from all over Europe to qualify for the UEFA Cup, joining the competition at the 2nd Qualifying round.

Due to a complete reformat of European Competition next season this is the last season of the Intertoto Cup in its present format. As the competition started this weekend, there are a further five weekend's of successive competition and the 2nd legs of the first round take place next weekend, June 28th/June 29th.

There are some BIG club names that will be entering the competition between now and the end of the third round, which takes place in July (1st leg - 19th July/20th July, 2nd leg - 26th July/27th July).

Honved - Hungary
Hibernian - Scotland
Deportivo La Coruna - Spain
Napoli - Italy
SC Braga - Portugal
Stuttgart - Germany
Aston Villa - England

Here are a few names of clubs that have started their route to European glory that you may have never heard of:

Bnei Sakhnin - Israel
Ethnikos Achnas - Cyprus
Etzella - Luxembourg
MIKA - Armenia
Nitra - Slovakia
Saturn - Russia
Shakhtyor Soligorsk - Belarus
Tiraspol - Moldova
TPS - Finland
Zhetysu - Kazakhstan
Erkanas - Lithuania
Renova - FYR Macedonia
FK Riga - Latvia
Teplice - Czech Republic
Fylkir - Iceland
HB - Faroe Islands
Rijeka - Croatia
and the list goes on and on.

For a Full List of last weekend's results, click here.