Sevilla continues defence of its UEFA Cup title at Czech club Slovan Liberec on Thursday, hoping to bounce back from a 3-1 Spanish league loss to European champion FC Barcelona.

Sevilla, which is fourth in the Spanish league, aims to recapture the form that saw it beat Greek team Atromitos 4-0 in the previous round of the UEFA Cup.

The Spanish club is in Group C with 2004-05 semifinalist AZ Alkmaar. The Dutch club is coached by Louis van Gaal, who led Ajax to win the Champions League 11 years ago, and has the only unbeaten domestic record. AZ hosts Portugal's Braga on Thursday, while Switzerland's Grasshoppers is idle.

With most of the powerhouse teams in the more prestigious Champions League, the UEFA Cup has developed into a second division of European soccer with a complicated route to the final.

The format for this stage of the competition is that the 40 teams are split into eight groups of five and only 16 teams go out. The top three in each group advance to the knockout stage and are joined by the eight third-place finishers in the Champions League.

The toughest group appears to be Group H.

Eintracht Frankfurt hosts Palermo and Newcastle welcomes Fenerbahce, with Spain's Celta Vigo sitting out play Thursday. Palermo knocked out West Ham 4-0 on aggregate even though the English club had Argentina internationals Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano.

Palermo is in the competition for the second season in a row after reaching the final 16 last time.

Palermo is third in the Serie A after losing 3-2 to Atalanta and coach Francesco Guidolin is more interested in the upcoming game against AC Milan than playing Frankfurt.

But Australia midfielder Mark Bresciano believes it's important to start playing well now.

``We want to rebound as fast as possible,'' Bresciano said. ``I don't know Eintracht well, but it will be a difficult game in Germany, no matter what.''

Frankfurt is unbeaten in seven Bundesliga games, although that includes six draws.

Livorno, which is three points off the lead to stand sixth in the Serie A, hosts Rangers in Group A on Thursday and Parma goes to Denmark's Odense in Group D. Two-time UEFA Cup winner Parma has only one point in the Italian league _ its 3-0 loss to Udinese on Sunday was its fifth straight.

Tottenham, which has not won the English league title since 1961, visits Turkey's Besiktas in Group B on Thursday. Another Premier League club, Blackburn, is at Poland's Wisla Krakow in Group E.

Rovers drew 1-1 at Liverpool on Saturday with South African striker Benni McCarthy scoring his sixth goal of the season. Wisla beat Odra Wodzislaw 6-0 on Saturday.

``Blackburn has excellent players and comes to Krakow as the favourite,'' Wisla defender Marcin Baszczynski said. ``(But) you can see that everything is on the right foot for our team right now.''

© The Canadian Press, 2007