QuoteLooks like it’s one country pot and if teams qualify for groups they’re not eligible for it.Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Ah thanks just edited, obviously Shels ecstasy tonight resulting in me slightly overpraising Rovers!It was only three ties... Let's not get carried away.
The Leinster Senior League needs a strong Bohemians
Looks like it’s one country pot and if teams qualify for groups they’re not eligible for it.
Legia, Poznan, Celje, Drita, Shkendija, Humrun Spartans. That's a perfect draw.
I can't find a way to post an image, so here's an uglier version.
Pot 1
Italy Fiorentina CC: 62.000
Netherlands AZ Alkmaar CC: 54.500
Ukraine Shakhtar Donetsk CC: 52.000
Slovakia Slovan Bratislava CC: 33.500
Austria Rapid Wien CC: 32.250
Poland Legia Warsaw CC: 31.000
Pot 2
Czech Republic Sparta Prague CC: 29.500
Ukraine Dynamo Kyiv CC: 23.500
England Crystal Palace CC: 23.039
Poland Lech Poznań CC: 19.000
Spain Rayo Vallecano CC: 18.890
Republic of Ireland Shamrock Rovers CC: 17.875
Pot 3
Cyprus Omonia CC: 17.375
Germany Mainz 05 CC: 17.266
France Strasbourg CC: 14.618
Poland Jagiellonia Białystok CC: 14.000
Slovenia Celje CC: 14.000
Croatia Rijeka CC: 12.000
Pot 4
Bosnia and Herzegovina Zrinjski Mostar CC: 10.000
Gibraltar Lincoln Red Imps CC: 10.000
Finland KuPS CC: 10.000
Greece AEK Athens CC: 9.500
Scotland Aberdeen CC: 9.500
Kosovo Drita CC: 9.000
Pot 5
Iceland Breiðablik CC: 9.000
Czech Republic Sigma Olomouc CC: 8.820
Turkey Samsunspor CC: 8.780
Poland Raków Częstochowa CC: 8.000
Cyprus AEK Larnaca CC: 7.500
North Macedonia Shkëndija CC: 7.500
Pot 6
Sweden BK Häcken CC: 7.000
Switzerland Lausanne Sport CC: 6.725
Romania Universitatea Craiova CC: 6.500
Malta Hamrun Spartans CC: 6.000
Armenia Noah CC: 5.500
Republic of Ireland Shelbourne CC: 2.993
Relatively straightforward from Rovers tonight against a surprisingly limited Portuguese side- perhaps the drop off from the big four is much starker than first imagined.
Rovers looked comfortable enough once there were no mistakes at the back, but I wasn't overly impressed with us going forward,but maybe I'm just becoming blasé about another ECL league qualification 😉.
Look forward to the draw tomorrow and see where the team I love will take me around Europe.🤩
There shoukd be more countrynmoney in the pot. Its devided on the basis of tv viewing figures or somethjng like taht so with twice a s many teams as last time the figures should be higher
But for who Kammy.
Pot 6 looks tougher than Pot 4 & 5.
That's a big call to claim that Shels are guaranteed a Top 3 finish, They're currently in 6th place and 6pts off of 3rd, with an inferior goal difference (though they do have a game in-hand. I'd say that Rovers and Bohs will definitely finish above Shels, with Derry and probably also Drogs favourites to finaih above them too. So they could finish 3rd, but it's by no means guaranteed. And I would suggest it's currently looking unlikely.
Spare a thought tonight for Damien Duff lads. He could've given his CV a massive boost by taking "Little Old Shels" (TM) to the European group stages - basically achieving the maximum possible within Irish football, before presumably having offers roll in for him from Championship or SPL clubs (especially if he had performed miracles in the group stage). But because he threw a hissy fit a couple of months ago he'll spend the Autumn playing Football Manager on his XBox instead.
As they say 'The genius is in the choices', Damien
Listening to RTE sports news on the radio and they’ve interviewed Ed Ginty. They couldn’t care less about the league.
Those seedings are a bit mental. Rovers seeded ahead of Mainz and Strasbourg and alongside Palace and Vallecano? You could get Lincoln Red Imps, Breidablik and Hamrun Spartans from the bottom three pots, or AEK Athens, Samsunspor and Lausanne.
I wonder will UEFA look at the balance between good side in a poor league v poor side in a good league in future years? It seems a bit off
The attitude of RTE towards LOI going back 5 decades has has hovered between condescension and derision, when that is they were actually aware of the leagues existence.
Last edited by redarmyfaction; 29/08/2025 at 9:07 AM.
I think it has been said here repeatedly before but sure look, fwiw, Duff said a few times he moved home so his kids could grow up here, I don't think he has any appetite to go looking for work abroad, if he did he wouldn't have left the Celtic first team setup surely.Spare a thought tonight for Damien Duff lads. He could've given his CV a massive boost by taking "Little Old Shels" (TM) to the European group stages - basically achieving the maximum possible within Irish football, before presumably having offers roll in for him from Championship or SPL clubs (especially if he had performed miracles in the group stage). But because he threw a hissy fit a couple of months ago he'll spend the Autumn playing Football Manager on his XBox instead.
As they say 'The genius is in the choices', Damien
Think management might just not suit his temperament but I hope he pops up somewhere working in an academy again, man has plenty left to give Irish football hopefully.
I've grown to like this Swiss league group stage thing tbh, gives everyone in the competition a few big games and a few games they can notionally get results. Much better than small clubs unexpectedly qualifying and then getting an impossible group as 4th seeds. Much more opportunity for clubs and by extension smaller leagues, to build their rankings over a number of years.
We've gotten a huge head start on other similar small nations, very glad both teams got through because I still feel this will be rare enough for a while. The EL and ECL qualifying routes are tough, plenty big clubs are out, look at Besiktas!
Last edited by Acornvilla; 29/08/2025 at 10:25 AM.
I saw a weird quirk of the Swiss league in relation to UEFA places that some fellow UEFA nerds might be interested in.
Servette finished 2nd in their league which saw them start in the 2nd qualifying round of the Champions League. They lost to Plzen in that round, then dropped to the 3rd QR of the Europa League where they lost to Utrecht, then dropped to the Playoff Round of the Conference League where they lost to Shakhtar Donetsk last night, leaving them with no league phase European football this season.
Meanwhile Young Boys, who finished 3rd in the league started their campaign in the Playoff Round of the Europa League, where they beat Slovan Bratislava to qualify, but even if they had lost they’d have been guaranteed Conference League league phase football for this season.
Because Basel who won the league also won the cup (which gives a Europa League place to the winner) that goes to the next best placed team in the league that isn’t in the CL qualifying, which was third placed Young Boys. So in short, Servette would’ve been better off finishing 3rd in the league rather than 2nd
Paaatrick's Agletic
It's not a Swiss setup by the way - a Swiss format is where teams (or players) play an opponent on the same score as them in each round (or as close as possible to their score). So if you win matchday 1, you're paired against someone else who won matchday 1.
I'm not really sure why UEFA call it a Swiss model - the only real similarity I think is that all teams/players are in the one tournament, you only play a certain number of them (6 in the Conference League for example) and in the end all players are ranked in one table. But the key part - how your opponents are selected - is quite different.
(Seeing as 2 Year Contract brought up the subject of UEFA nerds)
I love the new format playing 6 different teams is brilient.
It gives you the excitement of playing a Chelsea without the fact that its just two guaranteed lossess
Uefa cant help themselves, they always want to spin it out with BS. just get on with the feckin draw, no one cares about a cheap version of david copperfield
I started watching the stream and was like WTF…
Jeez from cut price david copperfields to expensive wedding bands......do the draw.......im not nervous at all í ½í¸€
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