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Results from this years group stages
St. Francis 4 - 1 Dezembro (Portugal) -
Match Report
St. Francis 0 - 9 Rossiyanka (Russia) - Match Report
St. Francis 5 - 3 Osijek (Croatia) - Match Report
Some fantastic performances from the 2009 FAI Senior Cup Winners.
Hard luck Breifne,
Great for you guys to win two out of three matches. Good to see an improvement in Irish results in Europe.
Well done.
Shaun, thanks for the support, it was a great experience, and the few girls having played in it last year was a huge advantage. The structure of the competition means that every group will have a team from one of the top 8 countries, England, Germany, Russia, Sweden, etc. There is only really one place for the rest of the countries to chase.
I think the creation of a national league will really help with this, only two teams across the entire group stage finished in a higher position than their original seeding. The Cypriot Champions, Apollon Limasoll won their group as 4th seeds, and Francis finished 2nd as fourth seeds. There were no real surprises anywhere across the seven mini-groups.
Irish Teams need to be playing at a decent level against decent opponents week-in week-out in a national league. The portuguese were disappointed with their results, indicated that they ONLY had three training sessions a week, and only five a week for the month prior to the tournament.
The Russian's work off a budget of $5,000,000 USD with 23 Senior players on contracts from $30,000 to $12,000 a year, with a further 50 youth team players on win bonuses of $20 / $30 a game. It really puts things into perspective.