Ukraine's Shakhtar Donetsk beat Werder Bremen 2–1 after extra time to win their first European title.

Associations were allocated places according to their 2007 UEFA league coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2002–03 to 2006–07.

When a place is vacated, it is redistributed within the national association by the following rules:[5] The calendar shows the dates of the rounds and draw.

The 12 teams that lost to a lower team were: AEK Athens, Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, Aris, Red Star Belgrade, Grasshopper, Slovan Liberec, Viking, Lokomotiv Sofia, IF Elfsborg, Gent, Queen of the South and Debrecen.

The draw, which was conducted by UEFA General Secretary David Taylor, was held on 29 August 2008 at 13:00 CET in Monaco.

Based on paragraph 6.06 in the UEFA regulations for the current season, if two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied to determine the rankings:[5]

In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.

Of the eight teams who had been placed in Pot 5 of the group stage draw, only Metalist Kharkiv and Saint-Étienne reached the round of 16.

Of the eight teams that entered the Round of the 32 from the UEFA Champions League group stage, two lost: Fiorentina and Bordeaux.