Or if we had finished the job against KR!Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
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Or if we had finished the job against KR!Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
in fact yes.
Had any other irish club taken another 0.5 (from a draw or win) last season it would add 0.1 to Dundalk's final co-efficient bumping it above two more teams... from 5.815 to 5.915 just below FH who are 6.175.
In that case we would be watching the leagues in Poland, Hungary and Moldova who usually would supply a seeded team but all three of which might just produce an unseeded team this year...
I think what we're all trying to say is that it's just the rest of yis being useless that's holding Dundalk back in Europe. ;-)
After taking 3 ranking points from our first two games in the group I said I'd be happy with one more point. The narrow failure to pick up another point (and we lost all 4 games by a single goal) could well hit us hard this season
My friends and I are taking this as the silver lining to losing in Iceland. Dundalk have literally lost more than we have as a result of... that result....Quote:
Originally Posted by seand
What you should take from this is that we haven't gotten over that performance.
Dortmund v Bayern is the German underage final - Dortmund could drop down to fourth in the Bundesliga on the final day, but you'd imagine they should still make it through the qualifiers.
So that's 3/8 in the bag already. This is starting to look quite good for UCD.
Anderlecht win the Belgian league, having already won the underage league - so that's 4/8 required. The same number of automatic qualifiers there were this year, when Cork qualified.
Worth noting that the worst-case scenario in Germany is that Dortmund win the underage league and drop to fourth on the final day and have to go through the qualifiers. I think they'll almost certainly win, but there is the issue of Red Bull Salzburg and Red Bull Leipzig both being in the CL. I'm told RB Leipzig may be ineligible for Europe (contravening rules on common team ownership) as priority would go to a league winner. So that would have Dortmund in the CL proper anyway.
Technically, Red Bull's influence in Salzburg has been scaled back in the last two years, so that they are officially no longer owner, but only sponsor. That was done to address this exact problem. Now whether UEFA buys this argument or not remains to be seen.
Dortmund secure 3rd place. That's another one in favour of UCD.
Well, I'd been counting it already in the 4/8. But nice to have it confirmed.
Ajax won the Dutch underage league as well - so touch wood they do the business on Wednesday now! But they're in the CL play-offs at worst.
Currently, Ajax, Dinamo Kiev, APOEL Nicosia, Qarabag and Ludogorets have won their underage league and will be in the CL qualifiers. Sporting and Celtic are almost certain to join them; Red Bull Salzburg should do the double as well. Copenhagen might - they're a goal off top - and FC Basel have topped the Swiss underage league heading into the play-offs. Then there's Olympiakos and Viitorul Constanta in the Greek and Romanian underage league finals, Legia Warsaw top of both senior and underage leagues, Monaco in the French semis, Juve and Roma in the Italian play-offs (along with 11 other teams!) and, for good measure, Zeljeznicar and Vardar Skopje have done the double, so if there's to be an outsider qualifying, they're the ones we want.
Bottom line - if any four of those teams qualify for the CL, we're back in Europe.
According to Bert's site, at best Dundalk could be the nr 2 unseeded team, losing out by .035 ranking points.Quote:
Originally Posted by sparky12345678
3 east Europe leagues went to the wire this weekend, with unseeded and seeded teams all equal on points in each of the 3 leagues.
After the weekend's games, the Albanian champions are CL unseeded, both the Hungary and Moldovan leagues go to a play-off between 2 teams equal on points in each.
If both seeded teams win the play offs, the cut off is - 8.650
One seeded team winning - 6.175
No seeded team winning - 5.850
Dundalk are on 5.815
Poland's league is still in the balance, 7 games to go, if the unseeded team hangs on to win, it wouldn't change anything for Dundalk, except that they would be the nr 1 unseeded team.
Having more unseeded champions would be better in terms of bumping some of the weaker champions into the seeded group like FH and Zalgiris.
Honved won the Hungarian league play off and they're CL unseeded
That means FH are seeded and in theory could possibly meet Dundalk again.
FH, Žilnia and Žalgris are more or less at Dundalk's level at least seeding-wise.
Anything above that i imagine is dodgier...
They lost on aggregate in the EL to an Israeli team. Other Irish clubs have experience with Malmo and Rosenburg...so not completely out of the question? Qarabag and Astana are horrible away trips. Ranked according to seedings, I'd imagine Maribor and above take this stage quite seriously and wont underestimate Dundalk like BATE did previously.
Imo Rijeka and Partizan would be great away trips (ryanair flies to Pula 1,5-2 hours from rijeka) and might be caught off guard a little...
I don't think anyone will be underestimating Dundalk after last season.
Unfortunately they'll have little to fear from us this season.Quote:
Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954
Maybe Bate didn't take Dundalk that serious in the first leg in 2015Quote:
Originally Posted by sparky12345678
but judging how they approached the 2016 first leg, they took Dundalk very seriously.
So, Sean Maguire off to Preston at the end of July. How many games could he play for Cork in Europa League before that?
The likes of Bayern, Barcelona and Real Madrid want the Champions League reduced to 24 teams without affecting their allocation. The Champions League could be closed off entirely from the reach of lower ranked leagues in 4 years time.
It's a pity to hear of Cork losing one or two players. I'm sure privately, without putting public pressure on themselves, the Cork management will be looking for another run to ELQ3 and another shot at making the playoffs.
He'll be available for two full rounds as well as the first leg of the third round, if Cork progress to that stage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Straightstory
Here's all the unseeded northern teams in the EL first round.
Midtjylland
Dinamo Minsk
Lech Poznań
HJK
AIK
Shakhtyor Soligorsk
St Johnstone
Ventspils
Odd
KR
IFK Norrköping
Lyngby
Nõmme Kalju
Jagiellonia Białystok
Stjarnan
Haugesund
Levadia Tallinn
Crusaders
Rangers
That's 19 seeded teams, 23 unseeded (I think), so plenty of room for an oul Kazahk, Armenian, etc. team to get shifted into northern Europe.