Definitely improved a lot last season under Pioli. Who they then decided to get rid of.
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Definitely improved a lot last season under Pioli. Who they then decided to get rid of.
Would be rather difficult to squeeze 35k people into to anywhere without a direct bus route or airship....
(For the purist), hypothetically would SRFC have considered using the part 'owned' national association football ground at Landdowne Rd sponsored by Aviva Insurance, if current SARS-CoV-2 restrictions werent in place. Tallaght Stadium is a fine home ground for any club, but as a league have clubs moved beyond the lure of added income in favour of real home advantage even for what on paper is a huge mismatch? No agenda to the question, simply interested in opinion on the pros or cons of things.
If this was normal circumstances I think Rovers would be mad moving the game to the Aviva. And I wouldn’t want Dundalk to move the game either if we had such a high profile opponent. Why give up your competitive advantage to satisfy people who don’t care about your club. And realistically anyway, I don’t think AC Milan would fill the aviva.
That's the 3rd away draw in a row we have got this year in europe, if we get past the Andorran side. We should be favs for that, but one game at a time, will still be a tricky tie, but certainly its one of the more favourable all the same.
Should we advance, the Sheriff game will be obviously much tougher, but looks like they will defibnitely lose home advantage for that, and if we can regain form and confidence, might have a chance, they are not the same standard of their sides from 3-4 years ago, then again neither are we. They will still be firm favs for that game mind.
Real pity Rovers can't have fans at that game v Milan, but obv same for all other sides across Europe, maybe Coleraine wouldnt have beaten Maribor on pens away if they had partisan fans there, who knows, in one off games you will always have a chance of an upset, less so in two legs as the bigger team will generally find you out in the second leg.
Anyone know what's odds the Inter team from Andorra are for the game?
Definitely worth a tenner If the odds are decent. dalk are a mess.
Are they any better than Cobh?
Good draw for Dundalk.
Terrible draw for Shamrock imo. Fair enough the draw has a bit prestige about it, but who cares about that. Europe is a cash cow and LOI clubs need to milk that the heffer dry. Reminds me of 2012 when Chelsea were playing in Champions League final, if they won the CL we went straight into 3rd round of Europe instead of the 2nd round. Loads of people saying it would be great to go straight into the 3rd round but give me a round below and a tie against a winnable team any day.
I suppose ordinarily AC Milan would be worth more than going through a round
Plus in the end of the day a trip to the San Siro with your LoI club is worth more than just money
But yeah, in this year, it's a bit of a kick in the teeth of a draw.
Part owned leashold interest. The IRFU still own the ground. Be mad not to take the opportunity to move game if they were sure they would pass the breakeven figure by a good margin. It would be a great spectacle.If there was substantial TV money it would make sense to play it in Tallaght. Lets hope they really put it up to them.
The memories are more important than the money, especially in the LOI where you can guarantee the club will blow the money sooner or later. One of the biggest disappointment that Cork City fans talk about from our recent run in Europe is that we never got that big European away day.
We played Legia and Genk and those were incredible stadiums, and it was interesting following Genks success in Europe that year but we look at Rovers getting Milan, Juventus, Spurs. Going back 10/15 years these draws were more common. We played Red Star Belgrade, Drogheda drew Dynamo Kiev. Derry vs PSG, Shels against Deportivo, Pats vs Hertha, Bohs against Kaiserslautern. Obvioulsy its all subjective and some of those are more appealing because they come from big leagues rather than any specific European pedigree.
Its the nature of European competition in the current era. UEFA doing everything it can to help the bigger teams/countries and make sure they are in the later rounds and the rest of us can fight it out for several rounds for the privilege of a couple of spots between the bottom 20 leagues or so.
So for Rovers to actually draw one of the most famous teams in World Football, but to do so in a year where their fans can't attend, there is no away leg etc, thats a real stinker. In a normal year you want the best chance of progressing, or alternatively the money spinning draw against a team like Milan, and so often we end up in the middle, drawing a tough but unappealing team from Norway or Cyprus or something along those lines where the chance of progression is slim, but you aren't selling the ground out either.
In a perverse, and very selfish way I'm somewhat happy we're not in Europe this year so I don't have to miss out on it, its my favourite time of the year usually. of course it looks like it will be a while until we get back there
It's good that the current players are buying into the new guys philosophy, but you need a new crop of players, cos I think we both know your flogging a few dead horses there, no?
As for the question asking if a team in European competition is better than a 1st division LOI team..? I can only assume you were a cleaner in the college, and not actually studying there.
A few yes but majority of that side won a league title in ease just over 12 months ago.
Rogers
Gannon
Boyle
Hoare
Leahy
Shields
Slogget
McEleney
Duffy
Colovic
Hoban
Add in Dan Kelly, Cleary, McMillan, Dummegan, Massey and that's a solid base to start with
Flores, Murray have been 2 disappointments especially Murray as you can tell theres a top player there, too many injures
You don't turn into a bad team overnight, just like throwing away a 13 pt lead didn't make Rovers a bad team
I guess it shows 12 months is a long time ago in football. Your team are going backwards at an alarming rate, and added to that is a disastrous recruitment drive to replace the old warhorses. This has left dundalk losing games in Europe to dreadfully weak opposition as well as now being seen as a viable source of 3 points to pretty much every team in the LOI. This contrasts sharply with the previous 5/6 years for dundalk.
However optimism, it seems, is never in short supply for dundalk fans, so the best of luck to ye.
Bit early for gloating PC if we lose against bohs and in oriel dundalk could be 3 points behind with 6 games to go....
Generally speaking the opposite is the case. Worst case scenario is usually the default point. There are few Dundalk fans that are not pretty worried about this EL game, one that we should win, but no absolute expectation. There does need to be a bit of back to basics eg Sheilds just being a spoiler in mf, and figure out who is the best creative combination with him. Build confidence and they are more than capable of moving the ball about at a higher tempo. I've written off the league, cup is about the draw, Europe is watching between fingers. Off the field things must have been pretty toxic, why doesnt matter much now, just hope that things are improving even in small bits. Generally talk locally is that the players like the new coaching team. Training is fresher, new ideas and methods. That could all change in weeks never mind 12 months. All very wait and see, which we have been doing from the start with Peak6.
Rovers have gone a bit off the boil too, but no crowds, commanding position top of the league, it happens and being out front brings its own pressure. I can see points being dropped be it at Bohs and/or Dundalk, but especially with Dundalk, picking up full points to get within reach for the run in is unlikely.
I'm fairness sbgawa, it's not a case of gloating about Rovers winning the league, it's about how the wheels have come off dundalk being the out and out best team in the league.
They are the 3rd best team in the league now, and it's down to some poor decisions-clearly the backroom stuff going on is a hindrance to their continued success.
Either Rovers or boez will win the league this season.
It depends on him really. If he wants to be taken seriously as a decent manager, he'll tell the players that we're the best team in this league, and Milan are playing this game, at this time, for a reason, and lay everything on the line. If he decides to go down the "realistic" road, the players may as well go home.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
If Tallaght was good enough to play Real Madrid and Juventus, it's good enough for AC Milan. It took Ronaldo, Raul and Real Madrid 85 minutes to win in Tallaght. It took a missed penalty for Milan to leave St. Mels Park on level terms. Of course we know what the result should be, but there's no second leg, there's no away goals to worry about. These are knockout Cup ties, there will be surprise results somewhere in Europe on the night.
Sorting out the TV rights is less challenging than sorting out tickets, but this game should be automatically covered by the existing Irish rights holders for the competition. They love to boast of showing "every game live", when in practice it appears to be just a handful of games on the night, and a selection of goals shown from a handful of other games, to a selection of available viewers. They should not be leaving Rovers to sort it out. The club already has enough work to do.
[QUOTE=mypost;204674
Sorting out the TV rights is less challenging than sorting out tickets, but this game should be automatically covered by the existing Irish rights holders for the competition. They love to boast of showing "every game live", when in practice it appears to be just a handful of games on the night, and a selection of goals shown from a handful of other games, to a selection of available viewers. They should not be leaving Rovers to sort it out. The club already has enough work to do.[/QUOTE]
Probably goes without saying but every single bit of this wrong.