League of Ireland in Europe 2014

[Nesta99]

The way things are going with Irish football of late, the League of Ireland will soon be ranked better in Europe than the national team are.

LOI are 40th and Ireland are 45th.

Has it not happened before when the league peaked in ranking? Which should have garnered a bit more respect from our disinterested governing body......

[Nesta99]

I know its moving a bit off-topic but hey! until 2nd legs why not figure out why we as a league could be sending clubs off to the other side of the world.

Interesting read Danny! As a former Soviet region it could be assumed that they would have been a stronger footballing nation than many in the AFC; going on current FIFA rankings they would be 21st from 46 nations in the AFC as opposed to being 48th from 53 as UEFA members. Crude way of comparisons I suppose but they may have been the bigger fish in a small sea with greater chances of some relative success. They have no chance of any qualification with UEFA for the foreseable future. So I wonder why they wanted to change from this perspective. Financial benefits may be the only real incentive I can think of. For travel the AFC Champions League is zoned East/West to keep costs down.

When Australia were parachuted in to AFC in 2006, New Zealand became the big guns of the OFC and have a much better chance of getting to the World Cup via a play-off which they won 2010 - which is an extreme version of what I was getting at by saying Kazakhstan could be more sucessful with the AFC. Im not going to try a similar comparisons with various leagues As dont know how you can really.

[legendz]

if Pats could get through..IF, id fancy them to put up a good display against Celtic, i watch a lot of Celtic as prob a lot on here and there an average side, no real top quality. Forrester in goal, Van Dijk at the back and Commons to me are the 3 best players, no world beaters after that. Scott Brown been out long term would help St Pats as he drives them IMO. There playing there 2nd leg in Murrayfield, would they be back at Celtic Park,not sure?

So tempting to look ahead to the next round but so difficult at the same time to look beyond the second legs. Interesting that the Polish league (21) is ranked higher than the Scottish league (24), though not a surprise. Tough enough draw for Sligo or Rosenborg.

[DannyInvincible]

The way things are going with Irish football of late, the League of Ireland will soon be ranked better in Europe than the national team are.

LOI are 40th and Ireland are 45th.

Is that a typo? You seem to be contradicting yourself. The national team is positioned 25th within UEFA's national team ranking, is it not?

[paul_oshea]

Cyprus is part of the euro....

[Dodge]

Is that a typo? You seem to be contradicting yourself. The national team is positioned 25th within UEFA's national team ranking, is it not?

I think it was a typo to be fair as the rest of the post is "the way things are going" rather than "this is where it is now"

[DannyInvincible]

Cyprus is part of the euro....

Cyprus is certainly European in outlook and tradition - it was under British administration until 1960 and is a member of the Commonwealth, EU and Eurozone, as you say - but it's very much Middle Eastern in terms of its geographic location, south of central Turkey, west of Syria/Lebanon and north of Egypt.

[DannyInvincible]

Interesting read Danny! As a former Soviet region it could be assumed that they would have been a stronger footballing nation than many in the AFC; going on current FIFA rankings they would be 21st from 46 nations in the AFC as opposed to being 48th from 53 as UEFA members. Crude way of comparisons I suppose but they may have been the bigger fish in a small sea with greater chances of some relative success. They have no chance of any qualification with UEFA for the foreseable future. So I wonder why they wanted to change from this perspective. Financial benefits may be the only real incentive I can think of. For travel the AFC Champions League is zoned East/West to keep costs down.

It is indeed possible that they first opted to join the AFC in 1992 under the assumption that it would offer them a greater chance of qualification for the World Cup. Obviously, that never materialised and they perhaps saw there was more money to be made under UEFA membership. If they didn't foresee themselves qualifying for a World Cup anyway, even by remaining in the AFC, maybe they felt they would have had nothing to lose, with only enhanced competition and more money to gain, by jumping ship to UEFA in 2002. That's pure speculation, mind.

I assume their accession was dependent on a majority vote by all UEFA members - Gibraltar's accession required majority approval, for example - whilst Lennart Johansson, who was UEFA president at the time, also stated his firm approval of their prospective membership, so I think it would be grossly unfair to suggest they're an undesirable addition and not universally welcome within the UEFA family.

[gufcfan]

Is that a typo? You seem to be contradicting yourself. The national team is positioned 25th within UEFA's national team ranking, is it not?

It was a typo yeah, sorry.

The national team are 35th highest ranked European side in the FIFA rankings, not 25th as you said or 45th as I had typed.

[gufcfan]

going on current FIFA rankings they would be 21st from 46 nations in the AFC as opposed to being 48th from 53 as UEFA members.

Valid point but another thing to consider is that UEFA has more than 3 times as many guaranteed World Cup spots.

46 countries vying for 4 qualifying spots and a playoff spot in AFC.

53 countries vying for 13 qualifying spots in UEFA.

You have to compensate for the obvious difference in quality, but still something worth thinking about.

[jinxy lilywhite]

I think it has more to do with cash and lucrative gas lines to supply Europe that sweeteners allow Kazakhstan be part of UEfa.
Sure was it them or Azerbaijan that won the Eurovision a few years ago.

[A N Mouse]

On the remoteness, and vastness, of kazhakstan, the roundup of first round from uefa was an eye opener.

http://m.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/news/2121259/

I apologise for mobile link

For kazhaks to Armenia was roughly equal to Iceland to Estonia. And the record for travel in a group game - Kazakhstan to Netherlands - wouldn't be a kick in the arse off the distance one of this years teams traveled, to reach Albania!

[Chalkie]

A return to the European Cup format is never going to happen so UEFA should regionalise the draws until the group stages. Small clubs like Irish teams shouldn't have to travel to Armenia or Kazakhstan unless they are in a group with teams from those far-away countries in the group stages.

It's quite all right for wealthy clubs from England, Spain, Italy, and Germany to have to face the costs of travelling to the extremities of Europe but it's unreasonable for UEFA to expect Irish, Icelandic, Faroese clubs etc to foot that bill. A bad draw in Europe could very easily put a club from any of those countries into debt.


Chalkie

[DannyInvincible]

It was a typo yeah, sorry.

The national team are 35th highest ranked European side in the FIFA rankings, not 25th as you said or 45th as I had typed.

Ah, I was referring to the UEFA national team coefficient. Although, the national team are ranked 19th in Europe based on the most recent update as of last December. We were 25th in 2009. I'd quickly checked it on my phone and appear to have read the info from the incorrect table on Wikipedia.

[sligoman]

Rosenborg sacked their manager this morning.

[oriel]

Very interesting.

Must be great feeling for Sligo and Pats fans having the home game this week and at 2-1 & 1-1 respectively, both must have a great chance, be magic to see both go through but I see Sligo as having the best chance, but you never know, all to play for.

As for us, well if we can get a result over there even a draw it would be just rewards for our first leg efforts, but I can't see anything but a Hadjuk win.

[PartySaint]

Very interesting.

Must be great feeling for Sligo and Pats fans having the home game this week and at 2-1 & 1-1 respectively, both must have a great chance, be magic to see both go through but I see Sligo as having the best chance, but you never know, all to play for.

As for us, well if we can get a result over there even a draw it would be just rewards for our first leg efforts, but I can't see anything but a Hadjuk win.

I still don't think we will go through.

It's quite strange, we can either wake up on Thursday morning looking forward to a Champions League game against Celtic or wake up out of Europe and out of the title race and looking at a long last few months hoping to finally win the Holy Grail.

[Acornvilla]

I still don't think we will go through.

It's quite strange, we can either wake up on Thursday morning looking forward to a Champions League game against Celtic

And a guaranteed shot at the EL group stage playoff!

[Yossarian]

Are any of the second leg games on TV this week?

[TonyD]

Are any of the second leg games on TV this week?

Pats game is live on Setanta.

Just saw the goal Derry gave away on Soccer Republic now. What a shocker!