LOI In Europe 2021

I do enjoy the league for what it is. But unlike you, I see the bigger picture too - I'd like to see Ireland reach a World Cup again at some stage for example, preferably before FIFA make it a 96-team tournament - which is why I want the league to improve and our teams to do well in Europe, and why I don't share your short-term "**** on everyone except us" mentality.

Suggesting that only fans of small clubs should worry about the bigger picture only serves to show you haven't a clue what you're talking about in the context of that bigger picture.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

which is why I want the league to improve and our teams to do well in Europe, and why I don't share your short-term "**** on everyone except us" mentality.

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Na. You are bigging up Shamrock pre game and calling them embarrassing when they lose. You are setting them up for a slating which is your own bitter way of putting them down. Your own club will never have their success so I suppose this is your way of ribbing them. Pathetic.

And don't come back to me with the whole 30th place losing to 50th place nonsense. We love sport because it is more nuanced than that. Flora could have a group that is better than their league ranking of 50th. Maybe they just had a game plan that was suited to playing Shamrock. Dundalk are 2nd bottom and are probably the best team in the LOI suited to European football.

If you could predict outcomes based on league rankings, football club budgets etc, then sport would be boring, predictable and the bookies would be broke.

I don't see what's wrong with taking an interest in the league standing and hoping we can improve. I don't think anyone on here realistically thinks we'll be in the top 20 or 25 any time soon, but what's wrong with trying improve?
I do still enjoy the league for what it is, but it's interesting to compare ourselves to other leagues. We rarely qualify for group stages so it's only natural that we take interest in the qualifier games and the league standing.

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Originally Posted by Philosophizer

I don't see what's wrong with taking an interest in the league standing and hoping we can improve. I don't think anyone on here realistically thinks we'll be in the top 20 or 25 any time soon, but what's wrong with trying improve?
I do still enjoy the league for what it is, but it's interesting to compare ourselves to other leagues. We rarely qualify for group stages so it's only natural that we take interest in the qualifier games and the league standing.

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That's all fine if that's what you are in to, but slating a team and labelling them as having an embarrassing result purely based on rankings is stupid IMO. And what's worse is when it comes from crap clubs that will never match the clubs they are slating.

Come back maybe when your own club achieves something.

[QUOTE=sullanefc;2085860]Na. You are bigging up Shamrock pre game and calling them embarrassing when they lose. /QUOTE]
Always thought Stu had a soft spot for Rovers.
You seem to have gone off the high diving board here Sullane, not many on here actually want to see LOI clubs, even our bitter rivals, let themselves down on live TV v European opponents they should be beating out the door..It reflects poorly on the league and gives ammunition option to the many many individuals hostile to the league.
Was it an embarrassing result and performance over both legs? Of course it was,and whatever about the deflection and whataboutery ( that I would also be indulging in if the shoe was on the other foot), most Rovers fans , I think, accept that.

For the record ,I was hoping for a Rovers 2-0 full time and 2-1 extra time, for co efficient points, a bit of a positive for the league while at the same time depriving Rovers of 3 million Euro and knackering them out for tomorrow's cup game
Petty and small minded? I resemble that remark.

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Originally Posted by Dalymountrower

.It reflects poorly on the league and gives ammunition option to the many many individuals hostile to the league.
.

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This is exactly my point. Who gives a sh1t about those hostile to the league. Leave them have their english premier league. They probably consider anything outside Spain, england and Germany a crap league. It doesn't matter to them whether we are 50th best league or 20th. They will still call us crap.

Like I said, life is too short. Enjoy our crap league for what it is and ignore the naysayers.

For the record, the first line in my own last post was tongue in cheek and laughing at how I almost entirely got it wrong on how I thought things could pan out. Calling out results as embarrassing is par for the course, its football and rivalries exist and hence so does slagging opposition fans/clubs. To be completely serious in calling results embarrassing is amusing - stones in glasshouses and all that. That said we should care about league results in Europe as it is the barometer, like it or not, by which the league is measured. Better rankings and credibility usually leads to improved investment, greater interest, larger crowds etc so yeah I care how other teams do, not to the point where my own club will get cut lose and struggle to keep up financially, there is a balance unless it is Dundalk tearing it up with lots of prizemoney! For as daft as it can seem I like the eccentricity of the way many LoI fans put club allegiances aside during European campaigns. Its a piece of solidarity among fans for a niche league that so many think ye are a complete weirdo for following. Dundalk's 2016 EL campaign showed how wider interest can be generated beyond LoI stalwart fans. And that's before we do how the international team needs LoI players competing regularly in Europe for their development and how shortsighted the FAI were in neglecting the league leading to a decline in RoI standards.

Sullanefc is right: we shouldn't be embarrassed that Shams lost to a **** team, costing themselves the equivalent of a couple of decades of LoI prize-money in the process. Revel in the schadenfreude!

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Originally Posted by sullanefc

Na. You are bigging up Shamrock pre game and calling them embarrassing when they lose.

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I didn't big anyone up. I suggested Rovers should draw away and win at home, which is entirely in keeping with the status of both leagues, including the basketcase Dundalk side knocking out the Estonian league leaders only a couple of weeks earlier.

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Originally Posted by sullanefc

And don't come back to me with the whole 30th place losing to 50th place nonsense.

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30th place losing to 50th place? What are you on about? I said we should be targetting 30th place, but we're a long way away from there yet. 30th place leagues should be beating 50th place leagues. Yes, football has more capacity for upsets than most sports, but still, you absolutely can use rankings to suggest who's the better team. I mean, that's the entire point of a league table.

You've an awful lot of anger about you, and very little of a valid point. Instead, you're happier to dismiss people because of the clubs they support, which is brainless stuff to be quite honest.

Two, 2(!!) UCD fans on a thread about European football... You couldn't make it up.
The equivalent of someone dishing out sex advice cos they once blew their beans with a brasser in the Dam..

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Originally Posted by placid casual

Two, 2(!!) UCD fans on a thread about European football... You couldn't make it up.
The equivalent of someone dishing out sex advice cos they once blew their beans with a brasser in the Dam..

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The catholic church still dictates the sex education "curriculum" in primary schools with no alleged direct experience in the area other than activities that have or should have had ended in court.
UCD have as good a pedigree in Europe as the majority of clubs Everton,Dudelange, under 19 successes, every right to have an opinion.

My interest in the league coefficient has nothing to do with proving something to barstoolers or foreign footy fans. Sure most of them have never even heard of the uefa league coefficient table, let alone looked at it.
People just like to see how we measure up against the others. It's natural.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

which is entirely in keeping with the status of both leagues, including the basketcase Dundalk side knocking out the Estonian league leaders only a couple of weeks earlier.

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A > B and B > C therefore A > C is a mathematical truth, but it means jacksh1t in football. This is the type of childish logic that I predicted would come back from you.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

30th place leagues should be beating 50th place leagues. Yes, football has more capacity for upsets than most sports, but still, you absolutely can use rankings to suggest who's the better team. I mean, that's the entire point of a league table.

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League tables and coefficient tables indicate average performance. They do not indicate potential performance at a given moment in time. Injuries, suspensions, new signings, new managers, player form are just some of the factors that can change for a team from week to week.

I don't know where Ireland and Estonia are ranked. I was using the numbers 30 and 50 as examples. But saying a 30th place team losing to a 50th place team is an embarrassment is again, childish logic. Like I said in the last paragraph, there are many factors that can improve/disimprove a team.

Lower league teams beat higher league teams all the time. Last night I saw a crap team, 7th in the 1st division, outplay (for large parts) a team 2nd in the Premier. Took them all the way to pens. Should Pats be embarrassed? Of course not. It's football.

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Originally Posted by placid casual

Two, 2(!!) UCD fans on a thread about European football... You couldn't make it up.
The equivalent of someone dishing out sex advice cos they once blew their beans with a brasser in the Dam..

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Lol. So true.

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Originally Posted by sullanefc

Lower league teams beat higher league teams all the time. Last night I saw a crap team, 7th in the 1st division, outplay (for large parts) a team 2nd in the Premier. Took them all the way to pens. Should Pats be embarrassed? Of course not. It's football.


Lol. So true.

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If Pat's had been beaten 5-2, by Cork Alberts Mk IV, yes it would be an embarrassment.

Your lack of any sense of expectation from a higher ranked side must be dulled by the CCFC experience sullane. If club positions were reversed in the game last night Cork lost you wouldnt be at all embarrassed, Cork fans would just accept the result because its football?

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Originally Posted by sullanefc

A > B and B > C therefore A > C is a mathematical truth, but it means jacksh1t in football. This is the type of childish logic that I predicted would come back from you.

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What the absolute **** are you talking about?

Pre-match, people on an internet forum were giving their views on a match. Imagine that!

Those views were that Rovers were favourites based on a number of factors - not least that a crap Dundalk team had beaten the Estonian league leaders a couple of weeks earlier. A Bohs fan has noted that any bookies he saw - not necessarily in Ireland - had Rovers down as favourites. (You've ignored that point actually. You've ignored a lot of points here).

No-one described their views as mathematical proof. You're just going off on hyperbolic rants now, countering arguments that no-one has ever made.

During and after the game, the general consensus was that the performance was embarrassing, again based on a number of observable factors such as Alan Mannus jumping over the ball, Joey O'Brien falling down instead of defending, and the centre-mid pairing not really bothering to do anything inside their own half.

And now you - who never offered any opinion before the game, and in fact have offered no real logical views afterwards either - have come along and started slamming people for daring to discuss a game, all while dismissing their views based on the club they support?

Would you ever get a grip.

You sound very angry stu? You need to chill dude.

I've no issue with people picking out favourites in advance based on your "factors". My issue is with the word "embarrassing". You'd think the result was a slam dunk with that kind of talk.

No LOI European tie is a slam dunk. You are deluded if you think so.

You are now offering the nuance of "the manner of the goals" in your phrasing of "embarrassing". A nuance you didn't offer in your original post. Revisionism.

Look, you've been called on your nonsense and are getting angry so I'll leave it there as I'm sure people are bored of this back and forth.

Get out and enjoy the sun stu. It'll do you the world of good.

The pearl clutching is funny at this point. Rovers underperformed. It happens.
They lost to a team who had lost on penos to a Cypriot team who then only lost on penos to antwerp so they can't be that bad. Embarrassing?? Not as embarrassing as oriel Park or dalymount on TV. Players wages not being paid , clubs going bust or chairman issuing press releases bringing North Korea into it. Those things are embarrassing, a team losing a game of football is disappointing (unless u are not a fan) in which case its great.
Roll on next season, hopefully we can embarrass ourselves in the group stages.
Dan Mcdonnell put up a great stat showing 0 Zero teams who entered the conference league in round 1 made the groups.
Winning the league is everything now

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Originally Posted by sullanefc

You sound very angry stu? You need to chill dude

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Says the lad who was giving out stink earlier 😁