LoI in Europe 2018

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Yes, they're results. That's how you judge a team. You did it yourself - said they'd get hammered by any decent European side. Not true. They've results an LoI team can't even dream of. They're also quite consistent in the qualifying rounds, one upset against a Moldovan side apart. And of course, their budget is streets ahead of Cork's, and they seem to use it in part to mop up the best national talent, as seen by their record in the underage leagues.

"Rubbish" is a daft evaluation of them. They're better than Cork.

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Lol, your list just have them beating Hoffenheim. Thats it!!
Derry drew with PSG remember!! :)

I agree with your assessment on Caulfield in Europe and for that reason yes they would do a number on Cork, but as I said Id fancy Dundalk to do them. (Bate were/are streets ahead of them)

I think they are rubbish you think they are great. Thats it, you know they will draw them so.........:)

Beating Braga, Dinamo Zagreb, Viktoria Plzen, PSV - these are results any LoI club would be delighted with. Ludogorets get them regularly. (They've beaten Serbian opposition three times out of three for example)

A 2-1 home defeat to Real Madrid in this day and age is literally unthinkable for an LoI side, as is reaching the last 32 of the Europa League three times in five years (and the last 16 once)

They are streets ahead of Cork. I'm not sure what you have to offer against that other than that once you watched them? You said any top side in Europe would hammer them - I've shown that's not true.

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Originally Posted by Pablo Escobar

We had a poor result against KR 3 years ago, but outside of that I couldn't say we haven't punched well above our weight.

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I thought last year was poor as well. Tame home and away defeats against a Cypriot side - albeit that the Cypriot league has improved lately. Narrow win against Linfield (Roy Carroll can only take so much credit!). Even the Levadia game looked ropey until the last 45 minutes, again with the proviso that those at the game seemed less concerned than those watching live updates. Hacken was a good win; Genk was a decent performance.

I'm not convinced yet.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

I think overall Finnish football is ahead of the LoI; look how comfortably Rovers were beaten a year or two ago for example.

But Cork (and Dundalk) are way ahead of the other LoI clubs, so that'll hopefully help even it up.

That said - not convinced by Caulfield in Europe. Some very poor results in the last three years

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In fairness, Rovers were pathetically bad against RoPS.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

I thought last year was poor as well. Tame home and away defeats against a Cypriot side - albeit that the Cypriot league has improved lately. Narrow win against Linfield (Roy Carroll can only take so much credit!). Even the Levadia game looked ropey until the last 45 minutes, again with the proviso that those at the game seemed less concerned than those watching live updates. Hacken was a good win; Genk was a decent performance.

I'm not convinced yet.

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You are spot on regarding Ludogorets. I think you are being unfair regarding our other results.
The Cypriots were very very good. We lost narrowly still and should have had penalties in both games. They were a clear level above us though.
Roy Carroll made about a million saves in both legs and we could have won those games by 10 easily with another game. We played very well in both games.
Hacken and Genk were very good performances. Especially away in Genk. They made it to the QF and they sold two of their best players after playing us. Ndidi is at the World Cup and starting for Nigeria.
We won 6-2 on aggregate against Levadia. We won both legs by two goals. I don't know what more we could do? We did let them back into it but we hammered the door shut late on.

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Originally Posted by El-Pietro

You are spot on regarding Ludogorets. I think you are being unfair regarding our other results.
The Cypriots were very very good. We lost narrowly still and should have had penalties in both games. They were a clear level above us though.
Roy Carroll made about a million saves in both legs and we could have won those games by 10 easily with another game. We played very well in both games.
Hacken and Genk were very good performances. Especially away in Genk. They made it to the QF and they sold two of their best players after playing us. Ndidi is at the World Cup and starting for Nigeria.
We won 6-2 on aggregate against Levadia. We won both legs by two goals. I don't know what more we could do? We did let them back into it but we hammered the door shut late on.

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Leon Bailey was in that Genk side too. He's doing pretty well for himself at Bayer Leverkusen now.

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Originally Posted by El-Pietro

Really nasty draw. There weren't many teams we would have been close to favourites against but we missed all of those. Even of the three you'd think we have an outside chance against include Malmo (who will be out for revenge for 2004) and Rosnborg (who will be wary of us after Dundalk last year) so we don't even get the element of surprise.

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I think this is the key point, it was always going to be very hard to have a chance of drawing the weakest teams when you get to this competition. In 2016 for the 12 games Dundalk played, we were only favourites to win one match, at home to FH (and still didn’t win it !)

Really tough group for Cork though, I’d be surprised if they made it past any but you never know, will be a long shot mind. There is of course the nice cushion of going into EL round 2 though.

We would probably have been officially underdogs against anyone but there were 2 or 3 teams that you would have been disappointed not to progress against. TNS the obvious one, but Zrinski Mostar caught my eye (mostly cos it looks like a really beautiful city) and I think we would have beaten FK Kukesi. Of course I'm not expert on Welsh, Bosnian or Albanian football and they might be much better than I'm giving them credit

If we were seeded then theres not many teams you'd be worried about on paper. i think Dundalk would be coming into this draw extremely confident had they won the league.

The issue with the new format is theres no real coefficient advantage gained from starting in the CL vs the EL. Other than the fact that you have the safety net of the EL to get you to a minimum one extra round. But if we win one tie and get to the third round, and Dundalk win both their seeded ties then we would both get the same coefficient. Two years ago when we reached the third round we got half of what getting knocked out in the third round of the CL paid off.

The great thing about getting the pre draw group today and seeing how horrible it is is that tmorrow we can be excited about getting Helsinki or Malmo, and we will be excited about the EL. If it had been an open draw and we had gotten one of those teams we'd probably have been a bit gutted (as we are today to an extent). I'm still buzzing though. I love Europe.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

I thought last year was poor as well. Tame home and away defeats against a Cypriot side - albeit that the Cypriot league has improved lately. Narrow win against Linfield (Roy Carroll can only take so much credit!). Even the Levadia game looked ropey until the last 45 minutes, again with the proviso that those at the game seemed less concerned than those watching live updates. Hacken was a good win; Genk was a decent performance.

I'm not convinced yet.

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Linfield was 2016, and, in the words of Stephen Bradley, "we battered them" 2-1 on aggregate. It must also be said that we went on to beat Swedish opposition in the following round. People are giving us little chance of doing that this time around.

Last year we beat Levadia 6-2 on aggregate. Then we lost 2-0 over 2 legs to a side that were clearly a level or two above us. There really was no shame in losing to them. But they're not a household name so that's where the idea that it was a poor result probably comes from.

I think it's more that it seemed ye never even got going against the Cypriots (and Cork beat Cypriot opposition the last time)

The Levadia game also seemed to be a slog at the time; was there a lucky goal in the away leg that finally got things underway? Can't remember now.

Obviously my views will likely be quite different to those of people who were at the game. And I am I suppose slightly biased by having Caulfield give me one of my bigger LoI laughs recently when I heard ye'd lost in Reykjavik (as I ordered another post-Dudelange pint :) )

Anyways, sure we shall see what the draw brings. I think we can agree that it's a tough pot, that there's some chances of getting out of it, but realistically it's odds against.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

The Levadia game also seemed to be a slog at the time; was there a lucky goal in the away leg that finally got things underway? Can't remember now.

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We got a free kick outside the box, which resulted in one of their players getting q second yellow. Buckley put it in the bottom corner from the free kick. Levadia hit the crossbar before Stephen Beattie got the second

The draw hasn't been kind to us this year unfortunately. All hoping for Malmo or HJK.

That's what it was alright; ten men

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

I think we can agree that it's a tough pot, that there's some chances of getting out of it, but realistically it's odds against.

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We can agree on that.

I feel Malmo are our best shot. We've always done well against the Swedes. We're 3 out of 4 to date, only losing 2-1 on aggregate to Hammarby in 2007. Malmo are having a poor season too. However, we'll be underdogs no matter who we get.

http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague...round=2000986/

Group 4
1 Górnik Zabrze (POL)
2 Vardar (MKD)
3 Dinamo Minsk (BLR)
4 Spartak Subotica (SRB)
5 OFK Titograd (MNE)
6 Pyunik (ARM)
7 Zaria Balti (MDA)
8 Coleraine (NIR)
9 B36 Tórshavn (FRO) / St Joseph's (GIB)
10 Derry City (IRL)

Group 5
1 Hafnarfjördur (ISL)
2 Nordsjælland (DEN)
3 AIK (SWE)
4 Ventspils (LVA)
5 Shakhtyor Soligorsk (BLR)
6 Cliftonville (NIR)
7 Lahti (FIN)
8 Luftëtari (ALB)
9 Connah's Quay (WAL)
10 Shamrock Rovers (IRL)

Group 9
1 Rudar Velenje (SVN)
2 Dundalk (IRL)
3 Hibernian (SCO)
4 Sarpsborg (NOR)
5 Häcken (SWE)
6 København (DEN)
7 Levadia Tallinn (EST)
8 ÍBV (ISL)
9 KuPS Kuopio (FIN)
10 Liepāja (LVA)
11 Tre Fiori (SMR) / Bala Town (WAL)
12 NSÍ Runavík (FRO)

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Originally Posted by El-Pietro

http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague...round=2000986/

Group 4
1 Górnik Zabrze (POL)
2 Vardar (MKD)
3 Dinamo Minsk (BLR)
4 Spartak Subotica (SRB)
5 OFK Titograd (MNE)
6 Pyunik (ARM)
7 Zaria Balti (MDA)
8 Coleraine (NIR)
9 B36 Tórshavn (FRO) / St Joseph's (GIB)
10 Derry City (IRL)

Group 5
1 Hafnarfjördur (ISL)
2 Nordsjælland (DEN)
3 AIK (SWE)
4 Ventspils (LVA)
5 Shakhtyor Soligorsk (BLR)
6 Cliftonville (NIR)
7 Lahti (FIN)
8 Luftëtari (ALB)
9 Connah's Quay (WAL)
10 Shamrock Rovers (IRL)

Group 9
1 Rudar Velenje (SVN)
2 Dundalk (IRL)
3 Hibernian (SCO)
4 Sarpsborg (NOR)
5 Häcken (SWE)
6 København (DEN)
7 Levadia Tallinn (EST)
8 ÍBV (ISL)
9 KuPS Kuopio (FIN)
10 Liepāja (LVA)
11 Tre Fiori (SMR) / Bala Town (WAL)
12 NSÍ Runavík (FRO)

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I'd summarise that as handy for Dundalk, not too bad for Rovers, and not great/looking expensive for Derry City.

That's horrendous for Derry.

Will be a fantastic trip for the few who go, but you could hardly pick a worse pot.

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Originally Posted by micls

It's not possible for the Cross to be upgraded to category 4, not enough space for it to be done.

Only 2 more days to the draw!!!!

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It'd be expensive, require cooperation from locals and the council and require some creative thinking but it is possible, probably not practical though.

Wales/San Marino thanks!

Tough enough pot for Rovers too.

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Originally Posted by RathfarnhamHoop

It'd be expensive, require cooperation from locals and the council and require some creative thinking but it is possible, probably not practical though.

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Definitely not practical. It would mean buying all the houses behind the Derrynane. It's in all practical terms, not possible.

Tough group for Derry! They've been screwed with the draw for a few years now. Given their current form too.

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Originally Posted by micls

Tough group for Derry! They've been screwed with the draw for a few years now. Given their current form too.

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The only possible way we could advance is maybe against OFK and that is if we get our early Brandywell form back.

Can our new signings play, we're signing four players on the 1st if July apparently.