Third-tier cup gains new fans

Paris – The subject of some derision when it was introduced at the start of this season, the new Europa Conference League has turned out to be a hit and now has some of the continent’s most famous names in the semifinals eyeing a rare piece of European silverware.

Leicester City take on Jose Mourinho’s Roma and Feyenoord play Marseille in the first legs of their semifinal ties today, with the winners advancing to the final in Tirana in late May.

Twenty-three years after the abolition of the Cup Winners’ Cup, the idea behind Uefa’s new third-tier European competition was supposedly to give clubs from smaller countries the chance to play more matches, earn more money and get more exposure.

It has seen the unheralded Norwegians of Bodo/Glimt put six past Roma and later knock out Celtic on their way to the quarterfinals, while the Slovenians of Mura claimed a famous win over Tottenham Hotspur as the English giants were knocked out in the group stage.

Both Bodo/Glimt and Mura started the season in the Champions League but defeats in the qualifying rounds saw them effectively relegated.

It was the same for Leicester and Marseille, who each ended up in the Conference League after being knocked out of the Europa League group stage.

Leicester won last season’s FA Cup and just missed out on Champions League qualification, so their manager Brendan Rodgers (above) appeared to turn his nose up at the idea of going into the knockout phase of the new competition.

“I’ve got to be honest, I don’t even know what the competition is,” he said in an interview with broadcaster BT Sport.

“With all due respect to the competition, I’m not sure what it is. But I’m sure I will find out soon enough.”

Leicester have since knocked out Randers of Denmark, French club Rennes and former European Cup winners PSV Eindhoven on their way to the semifinals.

Their story is hardly the most romantic – after all, the Foxes won the Premier League in 2016 and are the 15th-richest club in the world according to the latest Deloitte Football Money League.

Leicester are now in a European semifinal for the first time in their history.

The other semifinal brings together two former European Cup winners, Feyenoord (1970) and Marseille (1993). –