A decent year for the co-efficiant?

[Steve Bruce]

For NI, this year has been very good. Hopefully cliftonville can get a draw against CSKA, although I wouldn't bank on it.

I'm hoping though that this year will give us Northern Ireland clubs a bit of hope and confidence for next year and we start to take this competition a bit more seriously.

We also could do with a bit of luck with our draws. Linfield in the last few years have had Rosenborg, Randers, Dinamo Zagreb, Elfsborg & Gorica. Which make it very difficult for us to get past a round, although bar Randers we gave a very good account of ourselves.

I think to the Setanta cup might get a bit more competive as the Republic teams are not as good as they once where and the Irish League clubs are gradually getting better, with quite a few exciting youngsters coming through.

It may become a golden age for Irish league football and should make things interesting for the cross border competitions

[MariborKev]

It may become a golden age for Irish league football and should make things interesting for the cross border competitions

Didn't realise Stephen Beacom started posting on foot.ie.....

As you say yourself, until IL clubs decide to take European competition seriously, they should be destroyed on an annual basis.

Cliftonville have a chance of a draw against CSKA, can't see them anything better than that.

The Setanta Cup will not get competitive as there is too much of a gap in class between the top two in IL and the rest. ThroW in the fact that certain IL managers decide that the competition is beneath them and the competition will continue to be dominated by ROI sides.

[dcfcsteve]

With Dundalk getting a draw and a win(against Grevenmacher),Bohs getting a home win,and rovers so far with a draw and a win....surely this has not been the worst of years for the co-efficiant.

I know we didnt perform against a good Levski side but our draw and win(albeit against poor opposition),may end up being the joint best contribution.

I don't know about "a decent year for the co-efficiant", but it's a bad year for spelling....

[Steve Bruce]

Didn't realise Stephen Beacom started posting on foot.ie.....

As you say yourself, until IL clubs decide to take European competition seriously, they should be destroyed on an annual basis.

Cliftonville have a chance of a draw against CSKA, can't see them anything better than that.

The Setanta Cup will not get competitive as there is too much of a gap in class between the top two in IL and the rest. ThroW in the fact that certain IL managers decide that the competition is beneath them and the competition will continue to be dominated by ROI sides.

The top two last season where Linfield & Cliftonville, Crusaders & Glentoran where not that far behind and Coleraine if they had of gained form 5 weeks before they did, would have made the end of the season a lot more interesting. So what are you talking about?

[MariborKev]

SB,

When was the last time that one of the Big Two didn't win the League?

You'll admit that yourselves and your East Belfast rivals had horrifically bad seasons- the Glens fans managed to get rid of their manager and the ILS brigade wanted Davy gone for a long periods.

I was at the 3-0 tanking in Solitude and Cliftonville weren't even that good, you lot were woeful. Patterson has a hard working side but he then decides to playing a second/third string for Setanta game. The fact that both the big two Belfast sides misfired misfired meant others had a chance. Would Coleraine have been a force without Patterson?

Want to give me odds worth taking on one of the Big Two not winning the League next year? If it is some competitive, how come Cliftonville are still 8/1 to win in 2010/11?

[shep]

I don't know about "a decent year for the co-efficiant", but it's a bad year for spelling....

Jesus id hate to reach the stage in my life when i was doing a spell check on every post in a football forum...when your trying to avoid the boss catching you on the internet at work you dont really care.

[Cymro]

Funny enough the ignominy of the first qual rd in the CL would mean a couple of handy points to propel them back up the rankings!

Exactly, which is why it'll probably happen at some point. San Marino, Luxembourg, the Faroes and Andorra will play each other for several seasons, picking up points against each other. Eventually they'll move ahead of some other country who keeps getting bad draws against teams from Croatia, Sweden, Norway and the like.

Have to say I think the way they work out the coefficients is daft, it doesn't take into account the situation in the tie. For example, on Tuesday TNS beat Bohemians 4-0 and HB Torshavn beat Red Bull Salzburg 1-0. Both results good for the teams that won but one far more meaningful than the other - Red Bull were already 5-0 up from the first leg. And of course one was a 4-0 win and the other a 1-0 win. Yet from a co-efficient point of view they're both worth the same. I don't think it's right.

Maybe UEFA should award bonus points to the team that wins the tie. So you still get a point for winning a game and half a point for drawing one, but you also get (for example) an additional point for making progress through the round. At the moment you'd have to say it's a bit flawed.

[dcfcsteve]

SB,

When was the last time that one of the Big Two didn't win the League?

Portadown in 2002 I reckon.

Prior to that would have been Cliftonville in 1997/8.

It has historically been an extremely rare event for the Irish League title to leave Belfast, and within that increasingly rare for it to not go to the Blues or Glens.

[peadar1987]

Exactly, which is why it'll probably happen at some point. San Marino, Luxembourg, the Faroes and Andorra will play each other for several seasons, picking up points against each other. Eventually they'll move ahead of some other country who keeps getting bad draws against teams from Croatia, Sweden, Norway and the like.

Have to say I think the way they work out the coefficients is daft, it doesn't take into account the situation in the tie. For example, on Tuesday TNS beat Bohemians 4-0 and HB Torshavn beat Red Bull Salzburg 1-0. Both results good for the teams that won but one far more meaningful than the other - Red Bull were already 5-0 up from the first leg. And of course one was a 4-0 win and the other a 1-0 win. Yet from a co-efficient point of view they're both worth the same. I don't think it's right.

Maybe UEFA should award bonus points to the team that wins the tie. So you still get a point for winning a game and half a point for drawing one, but you also get (for example) an additional point for making progress through the round. At the moment you'd have to say it's a bit flawed.

Would I be right in saying that it also doesn't make a difference the ranking of the team you beat? So if Shams were to beat Juve next week, they would get the same number of coefficient points as Bohs did beating TNS. The system should be made a bit more complex to take account of not just the result, but the coefficient of the opposition, and the score in the matches as well, in my opinion.

[Cymro]

The points do increase the further you get in the competition if I recall, so the principle appears to be that in later rounds you'll have to play better teams for your points, as is generally speaking the case. However, in the same round, the points are the same regardless of whether it's a win against Rosenborg or Rudar Pljevlja. I totally hear what you're saying, and I agree.

[galwayjames]

i think the points you score in the group stage for a win are double what you get in the qualifying (i.e. if a win is worth 0.250 in qualifying it's worth 0.500 in the actual competition) plus you points just for getting to the group stage and progressing on.

[Dodge]

On qualifiers a win is worth 1, draw is worth 0.5

It's double this for group games.

Clubs, but not nations, get bonus points for each round competed in. (ie Rovers get an extra 0.5 for their ranking for getting past that round)

Opponents rank doesn't count

[A N Mouse]

Would I be right in saying that it also doesn't make a difference the ranking of the team you beat? So if Shams were to beat Juve next week, they would get the same number of coefficient points as Bohs did beating TNS. The system should be made a bit more complex to take account of not just the result, but the coefficient of the opposition, and the score in the matches as well, in my opinion.

It's hard enough to get your head around the intricacies as is.

A system that says juve are ranked so far above rovers that unless they score 10 against them they don't gain any co-efficient points may sound fairer, but wouldn't be very practical.

[peadar1987]

It's hard enough to get your head around the intricacies as is.

A system that says juve are ranked so far above rovers that unless they score 10 against them they don't gain any co-efficient points may sound fairer, but wouldn't be very practical.

To be fair, it's UEFA, a multi-billion dollar operation. They have no real excuse for rejecting a system on the grounds of a little complexity.

It doesn't even have to be that complicated. You could just use a bonus point system, so the same basic system you have now, only you get an extra 0.1 points per goal scored, an extra 0.4 for a win against a team in the top quarter of the rankings, 0.2 for a draw, then an extra 0.3 for a win against a team in the second quarter, etc. I'm just pulling the values out of the air here, they could be tweaked a bit to ensure the fairest system, but it could be done, and it could be done without too much complication.

[pineapple stu]

Dundalk/FIngal 2.241

If anyone else wins the FAI Cup, they'll get 1.741

Did Fingal get half a point because they got a bye past the first round?

[ger121]

Did Fingal get half a point because they got a bye past the first round?

If I'm not mistaken, Fingal get half a point towards their team ranking as they went out in the 2nd qualifying round. If Rovers go out in this round they'll earn a point as it's a round later.

[pineapple stu]

So it's basically something to give them credit for at least having been in Europe before?

[A N Mouse]

Think it's half point for each round you compete in.

[ger121]

So it's basically something to give them credit for at least having been in Europe before?

Exactly. Even if you go out in the 1st qualifying round you get 0.25 towards your co-efficiant. If somehow Rovers did get to the group stages, they'd get 2 points even if they didn't win a game in their group.

[outspoken]

Exactly, which is why it'll probably happen at some point. San Marino, Luxembourg, the Faroes and Andorra will play each other for several seasons, picking up points against each other. Eventually they'll move ahead of some other country who keeps getting bad draws against teams from Croatia, Sweden, Norway and the like.

Have to say I think the way they work out the coefficients is daft, it doesn't take into account the situation in the tie. For example, on Tuesday TNS beat Bohemians 4-0 and HB Torshavn beat Red Bull Salzburg 1-0. Both results good for the teams that won but one far more meaningful than the other - Red Bull were already 5-0 up from the first leg. And of course one was a 4-0 win and the other a 1-0 win. Yet from a co-efficient point of view they're both worth the same. I don't think it's right.

Maybe UEFA should award bonus points to the team that wins the tie. So you still get a point for winning a game and half a point for drawing one, but you also get (for example) an additional point for making progress through the round. At the moment you'd have to say it's a bit flawed.

Agree with you there and for example lets say Rovers beat Juve that should be worth more points due to the size of the opposition.....the bigger the opponent the better the points should be imo