Well, that time of the year is coming around soon and with most of the leagues now finished, we can see the possible opponents for the Irish sides.
In Champions League, Pats will face a difficult selection of teams, the fact that Swedish Champions Malmo and Norwegian Champions Stromsgodset are not seeded would be evidence of that. So, it will be tough ask for Pats to progress. UEFA do regionalise the draw, so it is likely to assume that it would be one of the following:
*Possible
Celtic
BATE Borisov
Ventspils
HJK Helsinki
*Sparta Praha
*Slovan Bratislava
*Maribor
*Polish Winners
Full List: http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/...eedcl2014.html
In the Europa League, Sligo being seeded will aid their attempts to progress and they have a chance to get a game they would consider 'winnable', again the draw will be regionalised, so the usual clubs from the northern nations that LOI fans are familiar to. Obviously like Sligo, Dundalk and Derry will face northern teams as well, with Rosenborg the major team to avoid, other than them, the teams would not be super hard but probably just a bit better than them apart from 1 or 2 of them.
Full List: http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/...eedel2014.html
Last edited by TheBoss; 21/05/2014 at 2:54 AM.
In the CL, if not regionalised I think FK Aktobe, FK Ventspils(the best they cud hope for) and Garabag Agdam are the only opponents that pats mighthave a chance IMHO
Uefa cup, hopefully get a welsh or norn iron team this year to boost the coefficients
Not sure if Champions League is regionalised? Europa League still seems to be (informally though). Dundalk, unseeded, would like Bangor City or Linfield (or Crusaders if they sneak into the seeds), or Tromso who are in the Norwegian second division. Aberdeen would be good too.
Champions League is regionalised for first and second qualifying round, I think. Europa is regionalised in the first qualifying round.
Would take a handy Welsh trip to start off with. Would like to avoid an IL side though. The way we're playing this season, I'd be terrified of losing. For the best trip craic-wise, I think Tromsø, just because I've always wanted to go there. It's also really far north, so wouldn't be too hot.
Our most likely draw (depending on regionalisation) is one of:
Fola Esch
Crusaders
Fram
Stjarnan
Vikingur
Torshavn
Fuglafjordor
Airbus
Glenavon
Aberystwyth
Santos Tartu
or Kalev Sillamae
Last edited by poster; 21/05/2014 at 1:27 PM.
Stjarnan would be great craic.
Just on regionalisation. The groups/pots for CL QR2 (Pats round) and the EL QR1 are "somewhat" regionalised in that they try to regionalise them but if there's more Northern seeds than unseeded teams, they'll move teams around
For example in 2012 Pats were seeded and in their seeded group were teams from Norway, Latvia, Wales, Faroes and Macedonia. The unseeded teams were; Northern Ireland, Iceland, Finland, Armenia, San Marino and Moldova.
Bolded teams certainly aren't Northern.
Last season unseeded Drogheda were in a pot with seeded team from Azerbaijan.
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
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New blog if anyone's interested - http://loihistory.wordpress.com/
LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
Personally, I think the whole tournament should be regionalised and possibly divisionalised too, like the Nations League idea.
I think it's harsh that about 20 league champions are out after CL Q2. They should be entered into EL Q3. The EL itself while big enough already possibly should expand to two conferences West and East of 32 teams each. Europa League final then between both conference winners. CL spot as planned for EL winner with the runner-up entered in the round before the play-offs in the non-champions path.
Anyways, enough of that. The goal of LoI clubs in Europe should be the play-offs. 1 or 2 clubs at that stage more often than not should see the country have a decent, and more respectable, coefficient.
I think there could be 4 conferences: North west, north east, south west and south east, although an obvious problem would be that some big countries would be in the same quadrant. South East would be a security nightmare!
Within each conference there could be divisions, graded by national league coefficient and with promotion and relegation. So instead of hoping to draw a Welsh or Icelandic team in a qualifying round, a win constituting a good European run, an Irish club might wish to have a good run in a 6 team North West Division 3(?) league with a view to getting promoted to division 2.
Ok, so that promotion would apply to the League rather than the club and it'd be possible for a situation where a team is doing badly in its own league and won't be in Europe, so it might lose its last games to get relegated! Unlikely, especially if there's prize money.
I think it's a shame that our size locks us out of meaningful European competition. I love European football and our absence from it only reinforces the negative view many Irish have of the LOI. I think this can also be seen in the context of my BIRGing and CORFing post in the Shamrock Rovers v Liverpool thread.
Europe's smaller leagues are not served well by European football's structures. Personally, I prefer the European model of national leagues and cross-border competition run by UEFA, but high profile sports economists such as Stefan Szymanski (author of several popular books and regular FT contributor) regularly argue that it is this very structure that means a decent sized city like Dublin doesn't have a football team to compete with teams from comparable catchment areas. He would argue for a standalone Dublin franchise in a cross-border Superleague with teams all benefitting from big TV money.
I wouldn't like to see it myself but I would like to see some means of European football being more inclusive. Dodge and others disagreed with me when I said that the new Nations League idea was a step towards more inclusivity for lesser nations, by giving more meaning to their fixtures. My views also apply to club competition - something better than the status quo can be configured. The above suggestion us only a taster, a starting point for discussion, not a final idea.
Last edited by Stuttgart88; 22/05/2014 at 10:40 AM.
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
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New blog if anyone's interested - http://loihistory.wordpress.com/
LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
Win 3 ties/rounds. Jeez.....
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
---
New blog if anyone's interested - http://loihistory.wordpress.com/
LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
I think at the very least, the 20 or so league champions knocked out after CL Q2 should enter a sepatate knock-out competition. That would take 5 rounds, same number of rounds as CL Q4, play-offs and group stage. The winner, along with the 4 best third placed teams in the CL and 3 best third placed team in the EL should enter the EL round of 32 stage. I don't agree with 3rd placed CL teams parachuting in but at very least the number should be halved. Tough on EL group winners too to be drawn against a CL team. I would argue 4 CL against the 3 EL teams and separate knock-out winner. Anyways, UEFA only care about money so I don't envisage them doing something productive for smaller nations nor addressing the unfairness of CL 3rd placed teams parachuting in.|I obviously have an unrealistic high expectation of LoI clubs entering the league! Still though, I think the league's best 3 representatives should at least have aspirations of getting to that stage, without a casino finance mentality of course.
https://foot.ie/forums/117-Kerry-FC
A Championship: 4 years - 8 first teams - 0 financially ruined. First Division '14: 7 first teams.
Opportunity lost for new clubs/regions to join the LoI family.
Feck that. The Champions (or European) Cup should consist only of champions. Open draw, every tie over two legs. Feck the modern system.
#NeverStopNotGivingUp
https://foot.ie/forums/117-Kerry-FC
A Championship: 4 years - 8 first teams - 0 financially ruined. First Division '14: 7 first teams.
Opportunity lost for new clubs/regions to join the LoI family.
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