What is the meaning of the English soccer term “cup-tied” when applied to an individual player?
Cup-tied is an adjective, used primarily in football (soccer), used to describe a player who is ineligible to play in a knockout cup competition after transferring from another club during that competition. In virtually all domestic and international cup competitions, any player who makes an appearance for a club at any stage of the competition is “tied” to that club for all future matches during that season in the same competition. This prevents a strong team from gaining an unfair advantage by signing a talented player from a club that has lost in an earlier round. A team that wishes to transfer a player may deliberately choose to keep that player off its cup roster to ensure that he is not cup-tied, increasing his usefulness to a club that may be involved in the same competition. A recent example of this was Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez’ decision to keep Milan Baroš off Liverpool’s roster for their 2005-06 UEFA Champions League ties in order to retain his value to clubs interest
