End of European Season 2005 Review

[pete]

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/ccoef2006.html

eL the 27th best league in 2005 & only country below us teams left is Israel. Not been higher than 28th in last 10 years.

4 wins
3 Draws
5 defeats
GD: 15-18

Good european season or wasted opportunities?

[Roo69]

watsed

[sligoman]

watsedI agree with Roo, it was all a watse:rolleyes: :D

[ThatGuy]

Maybe calling it a good year is a bit of a stretch, a less bad year anyway, and an improvement on the regular farcical European outings.

Cork City and Cork City alone have to be thanked for any credit that should come the way of the EL this year.

Clubs still aren't good enough. No EL side has really progressed beyond what Bohemians did in 2000/01 but it has been matched by Cork this year and Shelbourne last year. The difficult thing is going beyond that.

I think we have hit a ceiling in as far as we can go until clubs start bringing in better players from abroad rather than recycling the same old faces. I think Richardson will do that though, and if Stephen Kenny has learnt anything from his Bohemians days he will do the same.

Next year will be very interesting.

[Schumi]

Hard to say we watsed opportunities with the exception of Longford. Steaua and Slavia were a step above the EL. Putting Djurgardens out was a surprise and probably made up for Longford's result. All in all, a good season I suppose.

[Poor Student]

Cork or Shels didn't let us down but we all feel they could have done a little more. Longford obviously did let us down. It was a satisfactory season though. The majority of our representatives (excluding Inter Toto) came through the 1st round. Next year may have a similar result. Is the winner of Bray v Drogs 100% guaranteed a spot in Europe next year?

[Schumi]

Is the winner of Bray v Drogs 100% guaranteed a spot in Europe next year?No, only if the winner of Cork v Derry in the cup also wins the league.

[Poor Student]

So let me get this straight, if the cup winner only qualifies for the UEFA Cup in the league and not the CL then the cup runners up do not get the UEFA spot?

[tiktok]

Cork City not beating Ekranas at home was definitely a wasted opportunity because we were a far superior side to them, we were just lazy that night.
Longford losing away in Carmarthen was another one.

Overall though we gained in terms of the coefficient, which was great considering the coefficient we were going to lose this year. We've learned a lot ion terms of European football in the last couple of years, hopefully the managers of the clubs who have gained that experience will share it around ahead of next year when we start to have a real chance to make real progress.

[Schumi]

So let me get this straight, if the cup winner only qualifies for the UEFA Cup in the league and not the CL then the cup runners up do not get the UEFA spot?
Exactly. The Cup spot is the old Cup winners' Cup place so ranks above league UEFA Cup places.

[Roverstillidie]

i dont think i was a poor season, bar longford who were a disgrace. its just the benchmark is higher.

all teams are now expected to go through 1 round now as a minimum. winning the second is the barometer for success at the moment.

[thejollyrodger]

I dont see how its a bad season. Its not like we have already maxed out what we can develop under the existing system. Rico says he still has work to do with the Cork team and I know Nutsy is of a similar mind.

Celtic are an example of a club who have achieved all they can achieve in their league. We have far from reached that stage. There is still a lot to do.

I think we are reaching a glass ceiling regarding progression into the group stages. The most we can expect in one season is for 1 EL team to get to the third round of the CL and then go into the 1st round proper of the UEFA Cup. And the other 2nd place team to qualify for the 1st round proper. Its a good enough run for two clubs and the league for now.

Our co-efficent will continue to rise in the next 3 years (baring a dreadful draw and poor form) and so will our knowledge, experience, mentality and attitude but it will take a big push to go into the group stages of both competitions.

It will either take one or two things to reach the group stages IMHO, a person to buy a club and invest money or a proper grass routes system that is backed by the FAI and government. Who knows, maybe we might even get a lucky draw

[coislaoi]

So let me get this straight, if the cup winner only qualifies for the UEFA Cup in the league and not the CL then the cup runners up do not get the UEFA spot?

+ Drogs or Bray get into the EUFA cup if they are beaten in the final by the league champions. That scenario puts Shels out of the EUFA if they finish 3rd in the league. AFAIK:ball:

[crc]

I'm happy with the European run this year, but there is definately room for improvement. Longford was disapointing, and I felt Bohs had the potential to get past Gent, but Cork and Shels were both beaten by better teams (even if the 4-1 scoreline was a bit heavy in each case). Slavia and Steaua were better teams partly because they were Euro-savvy, that's something that I hope Cork and Shels can learn from. Next season we should be looking to at least match this season's co-efficient.

[crc]

... EUFA... ... EUFAWhat have you got against UEFA?

[coislaoi]

What have you got against UEFA?

Your'e right and I keep doing it:confused: :confused: Must be latent dyslexia.;)

[pete]

The problem from last 2 seasons is that really only 1 club doing well which puts a lot of pressure on coefficients.

Longford getting thumped away from home was massive surprise & City should not have lost at home to Ekranas so most ranking points we could have expected was maybe 2.1 instead of 1.8.

We really have to expect every team in 1st qualifying round to progress & really at that stage depends who get drawn against.

Interestingly only 2-3 countries outsdie the top 20 in europe have teams left in europe now. Croatia all out for 0.333 :eek:

[pineapple stu]

How can people not consider this season a success in Europe?! Most ever ranking points, higher than every one bar one of the ten nations above us, better also than Poland, Croatia and Hungary, a quality side like Djurgarden knocked out...just four years ago, we picked up one draw from six games!

Bohs (in a poor spell) lost 3-2 to Gent - very respectable result. Continues the trend in the InterToto of Irish teams competing against fairly decent opposition. Maybe next year we can finally draw an Andorran team or something though...

Shels' 6-2 win over Glentoran was arguably the result of the campaign. Cork's win over Djurgarden beats it in terms of football, obviously, but Irish teams need to start winning home and away to star moving up the rankings.

Cork v. Ekranes - can't complain too much knocking a seeded team out. Pity they couldn't build on the result away from home.

Longford v. Carmarthen. At least they won the home game.

Shels v. Steaua and Cork v. Slavia - hopefully these are the games the eL can start getting used to in the next few years. If the clubs can learn from the games, we'll start doing better against teams like this and advancing past them.

I think - barring a bit of fortune in the shape of a good draw or a couple of red cards, etc. - the First Round of the UEFA is the best we can hope for for the next couple of years. There's a bit of a gap from there. But if we keep progressing, there's every chance that we can get a team into the group stages of either tournament in the next ten years. It's a while away, but I think it's going to take time to adjust to the next round of European competition. We've only recently jumped up to UEFA Cup First Round - expecting us to get through this soon is prbably unrealistic.

Next year - Cork will do OK. Derry have a woeful record in Europe, but Kenny seems to have them going well, so they should advance. Shels in the InterToto or UEFA should advance too - maybe get a UEFA spot out of the InterToto. Bray/Drogheda/Bohs/Longford I'd be more worried about (Bohs apart maybe), but if they win their home game, that's Longford from this year matched and we're on the way to equalling this year's performance.

[thejollyrodger]

Dreadful result for Shels tonight.. im thinking it may be inter to to next season... how far do a team have to go to reach the UEFA Cup ?

[pineapple stu]

Last 11 now. Cork made it to the last eight last year. Have to see how the competition is revamped and if the top leagues are going to pay more attention to it.

Also, if Derry win the Cup and Cork win the league, or vice versa, third place in the league will get the UEFA spot.

[Slash/ED]

Clubs still aren't good enough. No EL side has really progressed beyond what Bohemians did in 2000/01 but it has been matched by Cork this year and Shelbourne last year. The difficult thing is going beyond that.


Winning two ties is matching winning one now?

[EnDai]

It's been a good season, can't deny that imho.

Am I right in thinking:
Cork win league and get Champions League, and Derry win the cup. Derry get UEFA from the Cup, and thrid in league gets UEFA. With 4th going to intertoto?

[bigmac]

Cork win league and get Champions League, and Derry win the cup. Derry get UEFA from the Cup, and thrid in league gets UEFA. With 4th going to intertoto?

Yeah. Cup runners-up only get the cup spot if the cup winners are the league winners as well.

[EnDai]

I now get to cheer for both Cork/Derry for the rest of the season in seperate competitions, how lucky am I? :D :)