On a positive note, four of those five are seeded (Qarabag being the exception), so there might be hope for feasible draws for them.
watching Rosenborg - Celtic last night, showed that Dundalk are not that far away from being competitive enough for the latter rounds. The only thing Rosenborg have on them, aside from infinitely more money, was that they have experience of what to do to get to the latter rounds. Rosenborg had a few half chances and some clear shots to win last night, and if they had scored first, I think they'd have held on. Celtic are bang average, a few very good players and then a lot of middle of the road ones too. With a bit more experience Dundalk would have beaten Rosenborg and given Celtic just as good an account of themselves that RBK showed last night.
AEK Larnaca 1 down against Minsk. Im not bitter but God I really hope they lose.
No club in Norwegian football should have "infinitely more money" than Irish clubs.Originally Posted by CorribsideSteve
Norway's population is similar to the ROI (quite a bit smaller than ROI and NI combined), and they exist alongside more populous neighbours with mutually intelligible languages, two of whom they have been in political and monarchical union with in the past.
Norway also has a long-standing culture of people actively supporting English football (and a few even supporting Stenhousmuir in Scotland as well !), the population generally understands English, and they receive a lot of English football on their TV channels.
And football isn't their biggest sport, as things like cross country skiing and ice hockey are more popular.
Up until recent years, Norwegian football was pretty sh!t and didn't attract good crowds. Yet look at the stadium Rosenborg has now, and how they and some other clubs there are doing.
If Norway can go from a similar situation to Ireland's to having a league that is a genuine Euro contender, there is hope for us yet
Celtic 5-0 up at the moment, so they're basically qualified.
That means we need two more from APOEL (2-0 up), Qarabag (1-0 up), Sporting (0-0) and Olympiakos (currently 1-1 against ten men) to reach the Youth League
Caveat there is that all five sides are away next week
Olympiakos grab an injury time winner. So ahead in 4 and level in 1, needing 3 to qualify
Dundalk looking at Astana tonight in disbelief..
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
They were completely Astanished.
Celtic ran their players into the ground, so much so, they could hardly Kazakhstand. Any excuse for a punI imagine Dundalk have been rubbing their eyes in disbelief at the size of the defeat. I thought it would be a much closer contest, perhaps an indicator of how hard it is to go through and thus shock at the result? Astana made it look like just another routine SPL game for Celtic.
General point I agree with but in Norway Cross country skiing and football would be the same as they are different seasons so much of a crossover.
Ice hockey would be much more popular in Sweden as well. Football is probably the biggest sport or at least on a par with others in Norway.
Looking at Rijeka, again Croatia is a relatively poor country compared to Ireland, smaller population, basketball and handball also very popular sports there, so the excuse used "to make one feel better" about GAA popularity in Ireland doesn't hold water, they held their own away from home against a decent 2nd tier CL team in this being their debut CL season. A city in similar size to Cork and probably smaller than Cork county, with only 3k or thousand ST holders, it goes to show Ireland have other countries to follow, to aspire to. Bar Hajduk and Dynamo there isn't much money in the Croatian league and the salaries wouldn't be much different. The top Dynamo players would be well above LOI salaries, but the other teams bar a few in Hadjuk getting 5-10k a month would be relatively similar.
The croats are a bit of a phenomenon when it comes to sporting pedigree though to be fair, given their population and relatively poor infrastructure coupled with a difficult and tough terrain.
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
I’ve heard the Norway comparison before but I don’t think it’s comparing like with like.
Ice hockey and cross-country skiing are not comparable to the GAA at all. While they are popular sports, they don’t draw anything like the spectators that GAA games do here. The crowds (and TV viewing figures) for the latter championship matches in Croker each year are off the charts compared to the amount of people who’d watch skiing or ice hockey in Norway. Even a county final in a mediocre county here could draw upwards of 10k people.
Also, those sports don’t hold the historic and cultural significance that GAA has here. The GAA was one of the forces in the cultural revival of the late 19th & early 20th century, and is a major part of Irish identity. And soccer was never marginalised in Scandanavia like it was here. It’s only really since the 80s and 90s that soccer became widespread. And there are still plenty of towns and villages around Ireland that have no soccer club.
And you can’t compare Norway’s neighbours to ours. Our next door neighbour was the largest empire the world has ever seen, and they’re still a global superpower. We’re forever living in their shadow. We’re exposed to British media everywhere. I’ve been to Norway and Sweden and I’ve seen that the PL is popular, but generally speaking most football fans there support their own team first, and follow the PL or La Liga second.
And I haven’t even mentioned the post colonial lack of confidence that is still very prevalent in Ireland.
And you have to take tradition into account. Historically, every decent Irish player has always left here and went to Britain.
Two more in the bag for UCD tonight; Celtic and Olympiakos.
APOEL are 2-0 up heading to Prague, and if they can hold on, we're in Europe.
Otherwise, there's still Qarabag (1-0 up against Copenhagen) and Sporting (0-0 against Steaua) to fall back on.
Looking good now.
http://www.the42.ie/ucd-uefa-youth-l...60581-Aug2017/
Congrats. Couldn't have done it without Fran.
Bizarre. It's not confirmed; we still need one more team of the three tonight to qualify.
wiki link
I thought too that you would need one more result to go your way. Maybe one of the qualified teams pulled out?
Unlikely I would have thought.
I've been following that wiki page on and off since we won the league, and it's been impressively accurate. It doesn't indicate any teams withdrawing. And if someone did pull out, you'd imagine another club from the same league would replace them.
I think it's far more likely the FAI have ****ed up here.
We should qualify - APOEL would be big favourites to go through - but I do think it's premature at present.
Draw is next Tuesday if all goes well tonight (and in fact, it's next Tuesday even if things don't go well)
Let's just hope things go well tonight, and if someone did pull out or was denied entry, we'll see that once UEFA publishes the list of entries.
And already the favourites to sort us out - APOEL - have conceded a goal, but it's been ruled out.
Nervy 90 minutes ahead I think!
Sporting 3-1 up away from home now, and 3-1 up on aggregate as well, so they're as good as through.
APOEL still 2-0 up, and Qarabag hanging on on away goals.
But apparently UEFA have confirmed it, so something on the wiki page has to be wrong somewhere.
But doesn't really matter; looks like we're in the draw next Tuesday anyway. Question is can Dudelange sneak in as well?
Qarabag, APOEL and Sporting all through.
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