50/50 chance to win the gameOriginally Posted by paul_oshea
I'd regard Kilduff's chance as a gilt edge chance to win the tie for Dundalk.
It is truly fascinating the amount of navel gazing that is going on here by Cork supporters in relation to their performances in Europe.
Cork lost both legs to a higher ranked team - there is no shame in that.
Comparisons with Dundalk or with the strengths of the respective opposition should really be irrelevant - except perhaps to those who want to try to point score or to those who are carrying an inferiority complex
Yes but Rosenorg went toe-to-toe with Dundalk and they just shaded it.
Larnaca set up to stop us playing. They identified our threats and nullified them. Maybe this was only the plan for the away leg, I imagine that they'd be very cagey away as a rule. But they came away with a win and this meant that they didn't need to change anything for the second leg. Or maybe they always play like that, who knows?
Larnaca are a very clever side. Any team can get a result against any other team by starving them of space. But you have to be clever, disciplined and able to work together well to do it. From my viewpoint it takes a good team to make both teams look that bad.
Larnaca out-thought us. I'm not a tactical genius but I do take an interest and I don't really know what Caulfield could have done different with the players he had available. Maybe play Seani as a false nine to overload the midfield, this may have opened up runs for Shep and Dooley. But that's a very different system from what the team is used to playing. Maybe play Campion from the start with Seani as no 10 and go long, but I don't think Achille is good enough for that and besides, when longball is your option then you're out of options.
Our small squad played against us but then again it's difficult to assemble a reasonably sized squad of players of a similar ability in this league.
At the end of the day it's all Dundalk's faultTheir showing last year means that Irish clubs cannot expect to be taken for granted again. Clubs are treating us seriously and collectively we'll have to up our game again. That's why seeding is so important. The likes of the Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders and Cypriots now look like our European peers. We're slightly ahead of some and slightly behind others. But we're lumped in with teams that we should be better than because we're unseeded. Dundalk's run was fantastic but it may have come a couple of years too early for the league as a whole (that's not a criticism btw!)
And obviously, it would have been better if City had made those millions
I also agree that losing by a single goal in each leg is not a dreadful result. I suppose Cork fans are disappointed with the performance. Some good points have been made about the superior tactical approach by European teams. In addition, they don't make the same amount of tactical and ball control mistakes that allows top teams in the LOI to score many of their goals.
Dundalk's playing style is more suited to European football. I think Caulfield will have to adapt his tactical approach to be successful in Europe. The tactic of getting The ball forward quickly to Maguire to exposure centre backs may work against flat footed LOI defenders but it is not going to work in Europe.
There is no reason to assume that Cork will not take this step forward. One only has to look at the improvement in their domestic form over the last year.
Navel gazing, inferiority complex, oh puh-lease. I'm talking about the City and Dundalk games because those are the ones that I have seen. I'm not trying to score points, I'm trying to look objectively at how our clubs did in Europe. If anything I was reacting to point-scoring.
I don't think that there is any shame in any of our sides losing, btw. We were all against seeded opposition and while it's disappointing that no club got through, there is no shame to attribute either.
You're right, the respective strengths of the opponents is largely irrelevant. City's result against AEK and Dundalk's against Rosenborg tell us nothing about either side's European credentials. Seani Maguire may have run riot against Rosenborg and Kenny may have had the tactical nous to unlock Larnaca. Or Rosenborg and Larnaca may have steamrolled City and Dundalk respectively. Or it may have come down to blind chance. We have no way of knowing.
But some of the suggestions here that it was down to how optimistic a manager sounds in the media is far too simplistic.
To have any chance of a meaningful postmortem we need to have a reasonable view of the strength of the opposition we faced. It just happens that a preseason Cypriot league is stronger than many, including City fans, seem to think.
On the other hand, Rosenborg, is not quite as good as we all may have thought. Or rather, our league may be closer to theirs than we thought. Kenny was livid after Wednesday's game and rightly so imo. Dundalk gifted Rosenborg goals just before half-time. That's not a criticism, City gifted Larnaca goals too. But this is Rosenborg. For all their facilities, for all their pedigree, for all of the Norwegian league's standing, Dundalk felt that they caused their own downfall. If they had held out for a few minutes in either one of those games there's a good chance that they'd be playing Celtic.
City failed to break down a Cypriot team and conceded two soft goals. The Cypriot league is as good or even better than the Norwegian league and there were much cleverer than us. But it still came down to small mistakes.
So, trying to not score points or feel inferior, I'd suggest that our league is actually in a very healthy state. Once we could only dream of keeping scores down against teams like that. Football in Norway and Cyprus has seen a lot of investment whereas here we've had to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and Dundalk has done the lion's share there in recent years.
We're not at the level of Czech or Danish football maybe. But they are a level up again. What we lack is consistency. We need to get teams seeded. To date teams do well for a while before going bang-wallop for a while. Rinse and repeat.
I didn't see the first 20 or so minutes for the first half in the 2nd leg. But I think I saw enough especially in the 2nd half when they really needed to go for the jugular they just didn't have any ideas.
I'm a bloke,I'm an ocker
And I really love your knockers,I'm a labourer by day,
I **** up all me pay,Watching footy on TV,
Just feed me more VB,Just pour my beer,And get my smokes, And go away
One of the main things that struck me, having see Rovers home leg live and watched Dundalk and Cork away on TV, was the decisiveness in the final third of the European teams. The Irish players, especially on the break, seemed to have a habit of over thinking and taking an extra touch, or attempting the wrong pass, whereas, the Europeans seemed to come to life in these situations and suddenly do everything faster. It was very noticeable in the first Rovers game, in general play there was little to separate the teams but Mlada just came alive whenever they got close to Rovers box. I'm not convinced it's just a player quality thing, I think there's a confidence and quite possibly training issue there that could be tackled.
Tallaght Stadium Regular
That's a good point. The City game is freshest in my mind but Dooley perfectly illustrated that last night. He made it harder for himself by taking a touch and then another.
Dundalk were unlucky, they know how to play at the level required for the EL at least. On another day they could and should have won overall. I saw some of Rovers game, but they never really looked like they were in the match.Youth and inexperience. Unlucky in Dublin by all accounts. Derry got handed the mother of all awful draws but there's no way they should have let themselves be hockied the way they were. Perhaps a kinder draw next year will allow them get through a round. The less said about Cork, the better. Woefully insipid. Home and away. A massive massive let down. Irish sides have a bit of soul searching to do over the winter.
Thanks derm - I think I got it now. Rosenborg=bad, Larnaca=good. Euro performances Cork > Everyone else
Try to enjoy what Cork are about to achieve this season!
I will thanks.
I will also look forward to how our league performs in Europe next season.
Last edited by derm; 21/07/2017 at 5:51 PM. Reason: typo
I feel dirty even saying this but I think Rovers impressed in Europe with a young inexperienced side. They played well in both legs against Stjarnan in what was a 50/50 tie. Didn't think they had much of a chance against the Czechs but the score in Tallaght could have been anything. Burke is some player. I know he had his issues with discipline but if I was Rovers, I'd have him signed up beyond this season. Anyway, I'm off for a wash...
AFAIK all the young guys (17-20)are on multi year contracts
Not LOI related but the 2 Lithuanian teams both won again at home. Shows what teams can do from smaller leagues with some good organisation and of course a bit of luck in the draw. Wonder if there is additional invest in their League too.
Two Macedonian sides left too; Vardar beat FC Copenhagen in the Champions League last night, while Shkendija lost 2-1 away to Trakai despite playing half an hour with nine men. Macedonia's one of the poorest countries in Europe. They'll pass us out in the rankings with one more game win.
Worth noting Fola Esch as well - 1-0 away defeat to Ostersunds, again not helped by a red card. They're still in with a shout.
Though every other country below us is now out of Europe, and every country above us bar Finland (immediately above us) and Liechtenstein (bit different) are still in. There's probably not too much to read into that really; just a coincidence rather than an indication of "next step"
You could also spin it that Mlada Boleslav & AEK won this week & Rosenborg drew away at Celtic so our sides didn't get much luck in their draws in the previous round
Both those Lithuanian teams went into the first rd draw unseeded. They not only managed to beat their modest enough opponents but also occupied their seeded position in the 2nd rd draw. That's what you'd call a path of good fortune.
The chances of then getting the best possible draw in the 3rd round diminish radically, but somehow the dice fell favorably again for the Lithuanian teams and one of them should go through to the playoffs.
Basketball is the number one undisputed sport in Lithuania, similar to GAA here, although they don't have other sports competing with the universal popularity of basketball there like we do with Rugby,Horse racing etc. The A Lyga has an average attendance of 500 ( 1st Division average here). Asking a Lithuanian friend of mine about FK Trakai was met with a "never heard of them" and that Trakai itself was a place "no one went to". Admittedly they are a new(ish) club, so he could be forgiven for not knowing them, but it speaks to a larger lack of knowledge about their League, and also of the satus FK Trakai find themselves with.Virtual unknowns , in their own country, managed to beat the 4th (or thereabouts) best teams in Sweden and Scotland, not in a lucky way, but in a well deserved way. And that's not mentioning Suduva who are in a similar boat, status wise, and are also on a remarkable run. It puts our club's lack of success this year in to some perspective ; as financially limited as our sides are, surely we have a bit more reach financially (triple their avg attendance for one) and thus skills wise,better players etc than a Lithuanian side possesses. It might be that they have wealthy financiers, but a cursory look at the squads show it's primary all home grown players ; no foreign signings etc.Perhaps our sides should have done better, but a combination of concentration lapses at vital moments and not taking chances leaves us where we are.
I don't think we should have done better. We done exactly what we should have done - beat the lesser teams and lost to teams that were better than ours.
This year is a total freak for Lithuania, just like last year was a freak for Dundalk. If the Lithuanians continue this run for a few yrs there's probably something in it but until then it's just a once off.
Bit of a nightmare for UCD tonight; we lost five teams we want to qualify. Three went out on away goals. So we now need three of the following to qualify - Sporting, Qarabag, Olympiakos, Celtic and APOEL. Looking a lot less likely now, but you never know. Sporting are the only ones in the champions' path
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