League of Ireland in Europe 2017

[derm]

Thanks derm - I think

u

r

very

good

!

I will thanks.

I will also look forward to how our league performs in Europe next season.

[ger121]

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...

[sbgawa]

AFAIK all the young guys (17-20)are on multi year contracts

[ger121]

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.

[pineapple stu]

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"

[Bunny Kelly]

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

[geysir]

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.
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.

[CorribsideSteve]

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.

[Philosophizer]

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.

[pineapple stu]

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

[sidewayspasser]

On a positive note, four of those five are seeded (Qarabag being the exception), so there might be hope for feasible draws for them.

[CorribsideSteve]

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.

[johnboy]

AEK Larnaca 1 down against Minsk. Im not bitter but God I really hope they lose.

[EatYerGreens]

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.

No club in Norwegian football should have "infinitely more money" than Irish clubs.

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

[pineapple stu]

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

[pineapple stu]

Olympiakos grab an injury time winner. So ahead in 4 and level in 1, needing 3 to qualify

[nigel-harps1954]

Dundalk looking at Astana tonight in disbelief..

[EatYerGreens]

Dundalk looking at Astana tonight in disbelief..

They were completely Astanished.

[CorribsideSteve]

Celtic ran their players into the ground, so much so, they could hardly Kazakhstand. Any excuse for a pun :) I 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.

[paul_oshea]

No club in Norwegian football should have "infinitely more money" than Irish clubs.

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

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.

[Philosophizer]

No club in Norwegian football should have "infinitely more money" than Irish clubs.

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

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.

[pineapple stu]

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.

[Nah Nah Nah Nah]

http://www.the42.ie/ucd-uefa-youth-league-place-201718-confirmed-3560581-Aug2017/

Congrats. Couldn't have done it without Fran.

[pineapple stu]

Bizarre. It's not confirmed; we still need one more team of the three tonight to qualify.

wiki link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9318_UEFA_Youth_League)

[sidewayspasser]

I thought too that you would need one more result to go your way. Maybe one of the qualified teams pulled out?

[pineapple stu]

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)

[sidewayspasser]

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.

[pineapple stu]

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!

[pineapple stu]

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? :)

[pineapple stu]

Qarabag, APOEL and Sporting all through.

[EatYerGreens]

Qarabag, APOEL and Sporting all through.

I've not been following this. What is this for re UCD - the Youth Champions League ?

[pineapple stu]

We're in the Youth Champions League as LoI U-19 champions.

Full details here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9318_UEFA_Youth_League) (mostly - we're aware there's an error somewhere)

Draw is on Tuesday - there's no pools as yet of course, but Cork's pool was regionalised, so a possible pool would be Ajax, Hammarby, Molde, KaPa, Breidablik, UCD, Dudelange and Esbjerg. Inter and Bordeaux are possibles too, though then one of the 8 others would have to drop out.

But we'll know more on Tuesday. First round in late Sept/early Oct.

[EatYerGreens]

We're in the Youth Champions League as LoI U-19 champions.

Full details here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9318_UEFA_Youth_League) (mostly - we're aware there's an error somewhere)

Draw is on Tuesday - there's no pools as yet of course, but Cork's pool was regionalised, so a possible pool would be Ajax, Hammarby, Molde, KaPa, Breidablik, UCD, Dudelange and Esbjerg. Inter and Bordeaux are possibles too, though then one of the 8 others would have to drop out.

But we'll know more on Tuesday. First round in late Sept/early Oct.

Jaysus - that's exciting stuff ! Well done UCD :)

[sbgawa]

Great stuff and a real incentive for the u19 league winners

[gufcfan]

Great stuff and a real incentive for the u19 league winners

Pity it's not more certain that they can quality for Europe, but I suppose we're lucky to have the chance at all. A guaranteed European spot, even if an earlier round was created to ensure that, would be a great carrot for players playing in the u19 league to know for sure it was there.

[pineapple stu]

It'll be easier for this year's winners to qualify thanks to Dundalk.

The first 32 countries in the UEFA rankings have their champions qualify automatically. Liechtenstein are one of those, and they don't have a league, so that means 33 gets in by default. After that, you're relying on a club to both qualify for the CL groups and win their underage league (or the UEFA Youth League). As Ireland were 41st in the rankings, we needed 8 clubs to do that before we qualified (we got 10, plus this discrepancy of 1)

But Dundalk's run last year saw the league move up to 38th, so this year's winners will need 3 fewer "doubles". Cobh are going quite well, which would be interesting seeing as they're one of the only LoI teams never to have been in Europe before.

[redobit]

What's the money like for an u19 European league.

[pineapple stu]

Away match expenses only, I think?

Maribor of Slovenia was the error on the wiki page; they won the U-17 league, but wiki had the U-19 winners, who did qualify last year.

[sidewayspasser]

I think even the away match expenses are capped at some level. So hope that you don't draw Astana...

[pineapple stu]

Pools are regionalised - so I think it'll be either a Nordic or a Benelux country. Maybe France or Italy instead, but no farther.

Even in round 2 (usual proviso on "if we somehow get there", etc, etc), it's fairly regionalised, though the two western pools get merged and the two eastern groups get merged so there's a bit of a wider spread.

Cork got HJK of Finland and then Roma, which would be ok travel-wise.

[pineapple stu]

I see Rosenborg beat Ajax home and away to reach the Europa League group stages. Puts Dundalk's result in a bit of perspective

[patrickccfc]

I see Rosenborg beat Ajax home and away to reach the Europa League group stages. Puts Dundalk's result in a bit of perspective

And Ajax were in the final last year, mad really. Could've been a whole different story had kilduff got his shot a few inches lower in extra time

[pineapple stu]

Draw is today at 1pm, streamed on UEFA.com. No pools as yet - and UEFA only says the teams "may" be split into pools - but there was regional splits the last two years, when the non-CL teams were invited.

If it's the Nordics and the Benelux countries in our pool, then Ajax are surely the plum draw, though you could see it being close to double figures (they got to the quarters the last two years)

I have literally no idea what to expect here (imagine Cork were the same last year, and they won a round). I presume it's this year's team that enters, not last year's team, but we're going well in the league this year again anyway.

[pineapple stu]

Pool as expected but with Legia Warsaw in instead of Dudelange

[pineapple stu]

Stream here (http://www.uefa.com/uefayouthleague/season=2018/draws/round=2000922/index.html) now

UCD in pot 2

[pineapple stu]

Molde of Norway; home first

[pineapple stu]

And winners to play Zimbru/Vllaznia in the second round. So there's a ready made excuse for losing to Molde anyway. :)

[ToberonaTornado]

€8K fine for Shams for "people standing in the stairwell during the home Europa League tie with Mlada Boleslav" :eek::eek:

https://www.buzz.ie/football/shamrock-rovers-paid-shocking-amount-fines-year-252168

[Charlie Darwin]

A lot of clubs get fined for that, not that it should be too difficult to police.

[ToberonaTornado]

A lot of clubs get fined for that, not that it should be too difficult to police.

I was shocked at the size of the fine more than anything tbh.
I suppose i shouldn't be after the fine we got for the Palestine flags v Split but its getting ridiculous now.

Maybe the observer was looking over at half-time when Shams fans were looking to use the bogs at half-time or looking to leave the ground at full-time and just looking at the dying minutes of the match from the stairwell?Benefit of the doubt and common sense should be applied.
The observers reports would be an interesting read.