INice one Marty glad you enjoyed itQuote:
Originally Posted by Martinho II
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INice one Marty glad you enjoyed itQuote:
Originally Posted by Martinho II
Could be an argument that Dudelange's run to the group stage in 19/20 was easier. They lost to the Maltese champions in the UCLQ1, then came through games against Macedonian, Estonian and Armenian (on pens) champions. All sides weaker than Sheriff I would argue. So I think that's still trying to believe your viewpoint rather than rationally analysing it. (Couldn't resist :p)Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Didn't realise there was so much recent history against Luxembourg teams, I think Bohs have a great chance to turn that tide. I'm assuming they won't be the bookies favorites but if they get them back to Dublin with the tie in the balance I'd fancy them to back up that Aviva performance with another one.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Well that's fine, but I still don't think you quite appreciate that clubs with multiples of your budget are generally better at football than you, so you kind have to overcome the fact the other team are better than you before you can play your natural game. I mean it's not FIFA these lads are playing, it's actual football on a pitch.Quote:
Originally Posted by paul_oshea
So, just to make sure I have this straight, Luxembourg clubs lost four successive European ties against LOI teams (including an amateur second-tier side beating a fully professional outfit) before finally winning a tie three years later, and that's evidence the Luxembourg league steadily closed on us and then passed us out?Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I know you're an accountant and you know about numbers, so I'm doubting myself a bit here, but this doesn't really seem like good maths.
Yes, when taken as part of the wider trend that Luxembourg sides in the past five years have beaten sides from Montenegro, Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, Kosovo (twice), Azerbaijan (twice), Hungary, Poland, Romania, Moldova and Scotland (and have taken group stage points off teams from Spain and Cyprus). Those are their wins against leagues not currently ranked in the bottom ten, in which time our record is one sole win against a Norwegian side. In that time they've risen from 46th to 35th in the UEFA rankings, while we've dropped from 38th to 45th.
Let's not forget too that those LoI meetings have been in pre-season for them but mid-season for us. That ought to be a big advantage for us. It's literally why we switched season.
That's certainly handy, but not easier than Andorra/Faroes in fairness. But in any event, it's not an argument I ever made. All I did was counter your suggestion that mid-table Dundalk's EL Group Stage qualification reflected well on the league. It didn't particularly. It would have reflected badly had Dundalk not beaten the Andorra/Faroese teams in particular.Quote:
Originally Posted by yurt
Bohs could certainly beat Dudelange - they're still in pre-season for starters. But I think it's reasonable to have Dudelange as slight favourites.
And bare in kind that win was against Cork when they were a complete mess, the fact Cork came back to make it 2-2 in the tie after the first leg is an indictment on Progress than them winning the tie being a positive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
Cork being a complete mess is kind of part of our league's strength, don't you think?
You can't really twist that into a positive.
You’re comparisons are irrelevant without context.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I think now with the abandonment of away goals rule it's imperative that the weaker leagues teams, especially LOI sides get the second leg at home
This is it CD, resources, player talent pool, are a factor this man does not bring into his considerations. He's the same watching Ireland re the stature of club player we face compared to our own lads more modest careers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
But you might as well go out into the forest and find a grizzly bear and set about teaching pilates to it as be talking to him on that front.
As this century began, Irish clubs making it through a round in Europe was still a novelty.
We're now at the stage where all our clubs are broadly expected to navigate the first round as a minimum, and it's very disappointing if they don't.
I appreciate the nature of the draw has changed a bit over the years, but for me this change in expectation is evidence of progress.
The start of the century is a long time ago now. A lot has happened since. Yes, results have improved since the 90s - I'm not arguing that they haven't.Quote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
But we reached a stage where we were expected to pick up a decent scalp each season (Aberdeen, Nijmegen, BATE Borisov, Hajduk Split, Djurgarden, Apollon Limassol, HJK, Goteborg, Gretna, Elfsborg, Rijeka, Odra Wodzislaw, Malmo, all in the 00s), and now we're back in a position where we can't expect that (see my example of the scalps from the last five years).
Or take the peak LoI (unsustainable of course, but that's another story) from 2003 to 2011 - LoI clubs got through 29 rounds in Europe in those nine years. In the nine years from 2011 to 2020, we got through 21 rounds. And that's with CL winners getting a second chance from much earlier (Dundalk last year wouldn't have happened prior to 2016), and of course UCD contributing a bonus round.
Whatever way you twist it, the results are getting worse.
I've shown the sides, outside the current bottom ten leagues, that LoI teams have beaten in the last five years versus the sides Luxembourg teams have beaten in the same time-frame. What context do you think your one random outlier example adds in that regard?Quote:
Originally Posted by CSAD
In essence the point here is that financial doping works. Which is obviously why it happens. After essentially buying slightly better performances in Europe with money they didn't have, Irish clubs have had to stop being suicidal.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I expect the current progress in Europe to continue, as Rovers etc professionalise their structures. So we'll be back at where we were in the era of financial madness in a few years time. Only without the accompanying and unsustainable financial madness. Let's repeat the historical comparison and yardstick exercise then.
Important to also note that the only times Irish clubs have reached the group stage of European competition have come after the era of financial recklessness
There's a huge amount wrong with this tbh. For starters, I really hope the current progress in Europe doesn't continue, as we'll be in the 50s in a couple of years if it does.Quote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
Rovers "etc" professionalise their structures? There's a laugh. Rovers I'll grant - but who are the "etc"? Putting "etc" in a sentence often means you don't actually have any more examples but want it to seem like you do. Cork are second last in the First Division now. Dundalk are a stumbling basket case burning through their Euro money in a manner which would make Ollie Byrne proud. Bohs, Sligo, Pat's, etc are nowhere near the standard of the top teams in the late 00s.
And in the meantime, non matchday income streams have dried up. No TV money (it was never huge, but it's less now). Minimal transfer fees (this is a big issue for the LoI). Stadia which have hardly any scope for non matchday income (but it's ok because they're nice and traditional)
You say Irish clubs have had to stop being suicidal - I'd suggest Irish clubs have had to find a way to increase their turnover in line with lots of other clubs across the continent, and have generally failed.
No - important to note the only time we qualified was when it was made easier to do so. Dundalk's qualification route was not available pre 2016, and Rovers' route was not available pre 2009.Quote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
Where are the facts that prove the standard wa abetted in the late 2000s, the teams in the late 2000s could barely string 3 passes together…if long ball is your kind of football fair enough but for most it’s not.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
So to clarify, for all the talk of how great things were in the 2000s you have what evidence exactly?
Em - try the evidence I've already shown about the sort of teams we beat at the time compared to the teams we're currently beating?
A high of 29th in the UEFA rankings as opposed to 46th now (albeit we should climb a few more places this year)?
I'm not really sure what more evidence you want to be quite honest. I guess I could add in the higher success rate of LoI players moving abroad (Hoolahan, McClean, Long, Murphy, Ward, etc) compared to now as well.
Could I push you for evidence of the claim that teams of the late 00s "could barely string 3 passes together"? The LoI may be leaning more towards technical proficiency now, but that doesn't mean the late 00s were just random booting the ball upfield.
And when it comes down to it, is it better to win playing ugly or lose playing nice stuff?
Aw come off it Stu, it seems you like forever you've been Cassandra saying 'this is the worst season ever, just look at the European results'.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
At peak we were ranked 29th and knew then that, for various reasons, that was unsustainable. Also it's worth stating that was achieved largely because we only had three teams competing, and one team doing well/anything had a greater impact, at minimum keeping the base points (08/09 was basically all Pat's, while 06/07 probably only time everyone progressed one round).
As for UCD bringing a bonus round, any impact they had was watered down by the fact we had 5 teams competing that year. If had four results without UCD then points marginally worse, without Pat's results that year marginally better (might even have bumped us up a rank for last few years)
We should be sitting about 40 (+/-5), this is a fair reflection. The dip in ranking this year is because of the loss of 16/17 points. The new format will have an impact on the rankings, effectively introducing more co-efficient '6-pointers'. This year's not done, and whatever your thoughts on the domestic season there's a real possibility of a breakthrough year in Europe, in terms of competitiveness if not necessarily group qualification. The only way we rise above this is to have four competitive teams, and some kind of domestic stability that has been sorely lacking.
For an example of how progress is made look no further than our northern brethren, who currently are ranked higher than us. The same 5/6 teams regularly qualify, they've built up club co-efficients to increase likelihood of favourable draws, which helps to raise country co-efficient. Despite an apparent 'lack of interest' they have four teams capable of progressing at least one round.
In summary, back in late 00's we were nearly at the stage where all our teams were competitive and could have genuine hope of all progressing at least one round. Then we got an extra European place and suddenly (other domestic issues) lucky if two of the four are competitive. Now with latest re-jigging it's harder to qualify, for non-champions, but we're almost at the stage were all our teams can have some expectation of progressing at least one round.
Ah, that's a bit lazy for my liking to be fair to everyone. Cork in particular in the 00's played a lovely brand of football in Europe. Even looking at that Shels/Bohs team that morphed from one group to another played really efficient football in Europe.Quote:
Originally Posted by CSAD
One of the first LOI European games I went to was Bohs vs Levadia (in 01 I think) and Bohs were outstanding that day.
Focussing on Bohs as a separate matter, Bohs were very good last season in Europe against TSFKAV, and they were excellent in both games against Stjarmen. First game it took them a little while to settle down against a very physical side, but it was clear despite the best intentions of the camera crew, that Bohs were interested in and capable of playing good deliberate football, and Stjarmen could not. Against the wind Bohs were excellent, and really should have taken a victory back to Dublin. It's great with hindsight of course, but that result last Thursday never looked in doubt. Devoy got all the plaudits, and fair enough, but Buckley, Wilson, Lyons, Burt were all very very good on the ball. Buckley in particular was extremely sensible in possession.
Thursday is a new game, new round, but no reason to think that Bohs don't have a good chance of coming back with a positive result, and we can see that they look comfortable in lansdowne. Only concern will be how bad the pitch in Dudelange is. It seems like it's raised, and with the amount of rain that's fallen here in the past week, I'd be concerned for the quality of it by Thursday.
But when we had three teams competing, so did lots of other leagues. You can't put our problems down to having a fourth team in the league when pretty much every other lower-half league in Europe also went from 3 to 4 teams at the same time.Quote:
Originally Posted by A N Mouse
The point about UCD's "bonus" round is in the context of purely counting the number of rounds our clubs won through (which is what I was doing). 2015/16 was the only year we had 5 teams in Europe, so it was a bonus result in that regard.
You say the dip in ranking is because of the loss of the 2016/17 points - I'd argue it's because we've done nothing at all of note in the past five years (again noting that this year is not over, and I've probably completely jinxed myself and Bohs will easily beat Dudelange. You're welcome, Bohs fans!) And that's the basic point I'm trying to make really.
The IL being ahead of us is more because they've had two years in the preliminary rounds, which the LoI has bypassed. The points they've picked up in those rounds is what has them ahead of us. (The preliminary round is gone now, so I do expect us to start rising a few places now)
Yes, club coefficients would help with seeding, for sure. But that wouldn't mitigate against my analysis of the leagues we've beaten - if we're getting the tougher sides earlier because there's variety in qualifiers and we're not seeded as a result, we're still not beating any of them (Brann aside)
To be fair to UCD too, they were very much the equal of Slovan for a large part of the game in the bowl. To the point that the Slovan fans I was beside were getting pretty peeved.
Rovers draw Teuta from Albania or Inter Club from Andorra in third round of ECL.
On the face of it with no basis or knowledge its not the worst considering Dinamo Tiblisi were a possibility
Bohs draw Paok from Greece.
Dundalk draw Vitese from Holland
Double ouch for Bohs and Dundalk tough draws
If Dundalk can beat Inter, Rovers can.
You always wonder with Albanian clubs how much they really want to win. Might be happy bowing out at that stage with a nice few quid earned from the betting shops. Assuming they want to win, they've no European pedigree at all (unlike other Albanian clubs who have reached the group stages and may still have a few quid rolling about) and lost 5-0 to Sheriff Tiraspol, who again lost to Dundalk last season, in the CL.
Sounds about as good as you could have hoped for really.
Edit - actually, it was only Skenderbeu who reached the group stages (twice), and they were given a 10-year European ban two years ago, which has hit them financially and they've fallen down the rankings since. So bit of a power vacuum in Albania since, and this seems a nice time to get them.
That’s Bohs and Dundalk gone by the third round (if they make it there) anyways you’d imagine.
Brilliant draw for rovers though. There was talk on here in the last week about Dundalk's draws last year being the best an Irish club has ever got. Depending on the playoff round draw, rovers could well run dundalk's luck close - a tie with an Albanian side and then one other club for a place in the group stages of European competition? I know it’s a lesser competition than the Europa League but that’s an amazing opportunity for an LOI club (very envious as a pats fan having watched us knock out 2 clubs in 4 European campaigns in a row between 2008-2012 without making group stages)
Vitesse Arnhem v Dundalk and PAOK for Bohs, just for reference. Vitesse are the unseeded team in that first pairing!
I tried to work out who Rovers could face in that play-off, and unless I'm very wrong, the vast majority of any combination of ties look winnable. They could face the losers of Slovan's tie, which looked about the hardest.
Yeah, it's a bit complicated alright. You're looking for a team to lose twice out of the draw below I think - that is, the ten losers drop into the Europa League to play each other, and the five losers from that are seeded teams in the Conference League play-off round.
The Gibraltar side are the obvious ones to get. Flora Tallinn of Estonia too. The losers of Alashkert/Sheriff. Maybe even Zalgiris Vilnius. I think the others all look tough, but even then, HJK/Mura would be great draws to get to qualify for a group stage.
Dinamo Zagreb Croatia v Cyprus Omonia
Slovan Bratislava Slovakia v Switzerland Young Boys
Legia Warsaw Poland v Estonia Flora
Alashkert Armenia v Moldova Sheriff Tiraspol
Olympiacos Greece v Azerbaijan Neftçi Baku
Kairat Kazakhstan v Serbia Red Star Belgrade
Lincoln Red Imps Gibraltar v Romania CFR Cluj
Malmö FF Sweden v Finland HJK
Ferencváros Hungary v Lithuania Žalgiris
Mura Slovenia v Bulgaria Ludogorets Razgrad
Don't really like the emphasis UEFA are putting on league winners in this - not Rovers' fault obviously, but it's a much easier path than the other clubs (Bohs/Dundalk would still have a round to win if they overcome PAOK/Vitesse, which could be against the likes of Roma, Spurs, although Bohs would actually be seeded it they won), and that can't help with the general problem across Europe of leagues becoming increasingly uncompetitive.
But that's the point I'm making, forget about other leagues it's the relative strength of the domestic league. 29th was unsustainable, but we were almost at the point of the three teams we put forward each year being competitive, maintaining a low 30s ranking was almost within our grasp.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
If you can pick any 4 from 6 in a league and expect them to do equally well or badly then one year to next the co-efficient should be sustainable. If it's 50/50 on expectations even before the draw then the co-efficient will be in a state of flux.
Also in the time since we were ranked 29th, only three countries have climbed higher, and only Hungary have stayed there, because they got back to their level.
Define the problem, yours seems to be we were ranked 29th, we're now ranked 47th - and your go to answer is we're rubbish
I'm saying that if we want consistent ranking, then we need consistent performances. And having all our teams of a roughly even pedigree allows for more consistent ranking, more resilient to the vagaries of the draw
You're being very selective with your statistics, if you can arrive at 29 rounds. On the pitch, so not including byes, or starting at a later round I make it a difference of 1 or 2. If we actually went by decades or eras then the last ten years are the most successful (duh), in terms of progressing through rounds, on the pitch.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
AFAIK the stage is only for club points, the results are for country coeffiecient. In that regard I'm not sure what ucd's contribution lends itself to, a bit of a red herring. Maybe it makes the tallies a bit closer in your apples to oranges comparison. I note you don't seem to have included any later starting rounds for 12/13 on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I mean it's an objective fact we lost one of our best years ever. I'd say keeping the score with something to the left of the decimal point, over the last five years, is a sign of progress. There no way in hell we're recording a 2+ coefficient multiple years on the bounce.
The lowest year in the past 5 is 18/19 with 1.000, 15/16 scores 0.700 (did you realise, there were five teams that year). Oh and 13/14 we scrapped two draw for a grand total of 0.250 co-efficient points.
You're making my point for me they went backwards to go forward. Yes it will come out in the wash. But by the time we're looking at the 2026 rankings, and those two big years are gone how far behind us will they be?Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
And here's the rub. You can't look at it in isolation and say we should be beating teams from xyz just because we're ranked higher, if it always went to the seeded side we'd still be rank last. Progress is having all our participating sides having a realistic chance of winning through a round, and maintaining or preferably increasing the ranking score year on year. And currently we're meeting that definition.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I watched PAOK last season and they are a vastly superior outfit, if Bohs can manage to reach the third round then they might as well enjoy playing PAOK, and that Greek weather will be a major issue too.
Irish club seeded v Dutch team unseeded, who'd have thought it. Hint of progress Stu:pQuote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I'm not convinced we will get through QR2 mind.
OK, there's a lot of stuff in there, and to be honest some of it seems like a bit of a scattergun approach of points. I don't want to get involved in a massive point-by-point analysis, so I'll just try pick a couple of items out. Mods - feel free to split if you want.
You can't forget about other leagues unless you're arguing that bringing a fourth team into Europe presented a unique issue for the LoI. How did it do that?Quote:
Originally Posted by A N Mouse
How am I being selective? I counted the number of ties that LoI sides won; that's an observable fact. (Byes have nothing to do with it - I've counted ties won). So the last ten years are not the most successful in terms of progressing through ties on the pitch, because I've shown that there were 21 in the 10s as against 29 in the 00s (or whatever the exact figures were). It's also why I flagged the UCD one as a bonus tie, and Dundalk's three rounds last year - they couldn't have happened in the 2000s, which was the period I was comparing to.Quote:
Originally Posted by A N Mouse
It is, but you've portrayed it simply as something unfortunate. My point is that it was inevitable we were going to lose that year, and the fact that the results replacing it have been steadily worse is a bad sign for the league. Sure, Dundalk's first El qualification was probably the best LoI performance in Europe in modern times. But did it just artificially inflate our standing for a few years and are we now back to reality?Quote:
Originally Posted by A N Mouse
Why not? That sounds quite defeatist to me. All 2.000 points requires is each team to win two games in a year, and lose the rest. That's with the CL team getting a reprieve even if they lose. Is that too much to ask?Quote:
Originally Posted by A N Mouse
And I'd say your earlier suggestion that the LoI should be ranked around 40th is equally defeatist. We're ranked number 31 in UEFA in terms of population, and population is a big factor in terms of league standard, as the rankings will show. Wealth is another one, and we're a wealthy western country. To say that we should expect to be ranked around 40th makes no sense.
What? I'm not looking at things in isolation, and I'm not saying we should be winning ties against xyz because we're higher-rated.Quote:
Originally Posted by A N Mouse
I'm explicitly looking at a series of results over a long time frame, and I'm saying we've stopped winning ties against decent countries, which is one sign that the league is going backwards.
Just a factor of Dundalk qualifying for Europe more often than Vitesse unfortunately :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Nesta99
I probably agree with you here even though Rovers benefit from it this year.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
The draw is heavily weighted to reward Champions almost to a mad degree.
In theory it is to compensate for the fact that the champions now have almost no chance of making actual Champions league groups anymore where by comparison Dundalk were a crossbar away from 30 million in 2016.
So you trade off having a once every 30 years plus (Shels were one round away) opportunity to transform a club for a regular enough shot at a few million
Yep - though I was surprised that the group stage prize money is almost the same for Conference League and Europa League (€3m vs €3.6m). So if you assume Champions League qualification is now impossible, then the new setup is effectively a second go at the €3m cherry, which is decent in fairness.
Bohs home game v Dudelange confirmed for Lansdowne. Capacity to be announced tomorrow.
Not getting ahead of ourselves or anything , but if Bohs do progress to play PAOK , Ross Tierney , Dawson Devoy and Andy Lyons may be playing against some of the PAOK under 19`s they narrowly lost 2-1 on aggregate to in the champions cup in October 2019.
Was a brilliant game in Dalymount, probably the best game I saw that season.
After seeing Rovers miss out on a bumper pay off (crowds/corporate) against AC Milan last year and Dundalk miss out on the same against Arsenal if any club make group stages this year or get an attractive draw in the playoff round (Spurs) please God by that stages bigger crowds are allowed (maybe use the covid passports?).
Irish Clubs need to be able to milk these opportunities in a safe manner
Spoil sport!Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Rovers now have a super chance at making the ECL group stage. Losing to either the Albanians or Andorrans in round 3 would rightly been seen as a disaster.
A certain amount has to happen first, but with the way this draw works Rovers should they win round 3 will be drawn against one of the 5 worst sides playing in the CLQ2. Looking at the possible opponents there are about 5 teams that I think Rovers would be competitive with and 2 (Gibraltar and Estonia) that they should be favorites for. So barring an upset in the ties before then, there's a 40% chance they will draw one of these two. Tasty enough prospect if it can fall in to place like that.
On the point of the Euro competitions being stacked in favor of the champions, I think it's a good thing. These places in Euro competitions were before being taken by teams coming second or third in mid rank leagues, now they've essentially reserved 5 spaces in the ECL for the best champions of the worst leagues. It means that Dundalk's kind draw last year isn't actually going to be that much of an anomaly if the Irish champions actually have a decent co-efficient and can be seeded for that later rounds of the draw.
I can't speak for other leagues, and I'm not claiming that it was unique. I can say it weakened our position as we almost had three competitive teams. Now other leagues may have been in a similar position, some could field a fourth team without ill effect. But the point is going from three to four entires coincided with the poo-poo hitting the fan domestically, and we went from almost having 3 of 3 teams competitive to 1 or 2 of four pulling their weight. Simultaneously diluting the co-efficient, and the ability of teams to contribute to it. Now you can choose to ignore that but I see the things as intrinsically linked and without relation to the situation any other country may or may not have found itself in.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Are you counting the inter-toto or something? You're being selective when you pick seemingly random dates 2003-2011 and 2011-2020 I mean there not even the same length of period, and I've no idea where 29 comes from. By my reckoning there were 20 rounds of progress 01/02-10/11 and 25 in period 11/12-20/21. That's just were a tie was won.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I don't think I've characterised it as anything other than a fact. And what have the results been steadily worse than? The best co-efficient year ever?Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
As I pointed out the co-efficient hasn't dipped below 1.00 in the current 5 year period, and the one to be lost next year has already been matched. 18/19's 1.000 required 3 wins and 2 draws with 1 rounds progress to just match the 1.00 from the halcyon days of 07/08, when recorded 4 draws and 1 round of progress.
And that's happened exactly how many times in the past? I mean it should be a goal, and how would it be acheived? By having all our teams be competitive!Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I'm not suggesting that 40th is where we belong. I believe that around 40th is a fair reflection of the current state of the league. And how do we improve that? By having all our teams be competitive!Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Which, absent the context of strength of our represenitives, the draw, changes in competition or other leagues, the nature of football matches, or simply everything else not standing idly by is looking at selected fixtures in isolation.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I look at the last decade and compare it to the one before and choose to see progress. Who's defeatist?
Delighted that Rovers seem to have finally inherited some of the outrageous good fortune in draws provided to dundalk in recent years.
Hopefully the gut wrenching experience of failing to get past Slovan will drive the Hoops players on to succed.
If boez and dundalk get past round 2 I'd have to assume that's as far as they'll go.
I have a Greek mate who's an absolute PAOK FANATIC, and if they get to play boez we'll have to get a ticket for the game if it's in the Aviva. Loads and loads of fun in store!! 😁 😁
Don't be surprised if an absolute load of PAOK fans turn up to that game...
Excuse my ignorance - but is it possible for an Irish club to play in the Europa League any more? It seems to be Champions League or Europa Conference only.