The cup competition than didn't even have a cup ... and STILL doesn't have one(!) ... has been the laughing stock of UEFA since it started. But Roeder has hit back at all those who mock it, saying they are disrespecting the club as well as the competition.
No Laughing When We Pick Up That Trophy!
The Magpies will be presented with a trophy plaque before tonight's Uefa Cup clash with AZ Alkmaar as they are the last surviving team in the competition who entered the Intertoto Cup in the summer.
To be honest, it is all a bit of an embarrassment. A competition we didn't even know we had won! So bizarre, Freddy Shepherd got a call saying we'd won the thing and the chairman didn't believe him!
Roeder: "Are we going to embarrass the people that put up the Intertoto, disrespect them and say we don't want it? How disrespectful would that be? We're proud that we're the team that's gone the furthest, but we're not making a song and dance about it. If people are treating it as a joke and saying we can't accept it, how disrespectful and rude is that?
"If it wasn't for the Intertoto Cup we would not be here today talking about a game in the last 16 of the Uefa Cup against AZ Alkmaar. We're expected to come to the last 16 and then the last eight, but we're only here because of playing in the Intertoto Cup."