Domestic Options/ LOI in Europe

[Acornvilla]

Hello friends, given we will have 2 clubs, Shelbourne and Shamrock Rovers playing in the Conference League proper this season, maybe it's a good time to make one topic to mention how that's going over here in the fancy international section of the forum.

Shels have qualified for the first time ever, and although a wonderful achievement in itself, only had to beat Linfield twice in the end. The 2nd meeting was particularly one-sided, again showing the gap between leagues north and south after Rovers humbling of Larne last year. Shels did put up a very good effort v the Croatian champions in the Europa League but were beaten well by Qarabag who just knocked Robbie Keane and Callum O' Dowda out of the Champions league, so no great surprise or shame there.

Shels has been a great story, albeit a more limited squad with less European experience, their surprising league win paved the way for Rovers to do something I wasn't sure could happen. They qualified right through with no parachutes. 4-0 (Gibraltar), 4-1 (Kosovo) and must impressively 2-1 win on aggregate v Portuguese (Brazilian) opposition in the playoff round!

There's been lots of chats here about the strength of the LOI relative to elsewhere and you all know I've long been an advocate that there's a little more there than you might think. The league is currently sitting 31st in the 5 year coefficient table, but the trend would be towards the mid 20's if anything like what's been happening recently continues in the medium term.

We're going to have at least 12 more games to keep an eye on how a bunch of Irish fellas handle European competition against sides of varying abilities, but plenty on par or above many sides Ireland face internationally. Rovers squad especially is of a higher standard, and is almost entirely Irish which is pretty cool to see, sure Pico has 50 odd cape Verde caps, but he still has a big Irish head, only himself, as well as subs, Wales cap Alan Matthews and N.I u21 John McGovern were the non ROI squad members last night.

Probably the obvious ones to keep an Eye out for:

Michael Noonan, Josh Honohan, Matt Healy, Victor Ozhianvuna, Danny Mandriou and maybe Cory O' Sullivan?

From a Shels perspective, there's probably no one who will ever be where we'd need them to be but if I had to say anyone, Mipo Odubeko hasn't lived up to the hype yet, has something about him that could come good yet, or maybe u21 cap Sean Moore who has signed from West Ham, if he's good enough to actually break in to the team or not remains to be seen.

I'd give a shoutout to Sean Gannon for being in a squad that qualified for a European group stage every time it's happened which is a bit mad, maybe we should just call him up and we'll qualify for the WC

Anyway, I thought it'd be nice to have a spot to follow this with most of these players not needing their own threads

[Kingdom]

Brilliant thread idea. good stuff.

[Eirambler]

It's a great achievement alright - admittedly mostly down to Shamrock Rovers, as Shelbourne were more or less gifted their group stage spot by drawing a team as bad as Linfield twice. Incidentally, only one side from the top seven European leagues didn't make it through to the group stages of any European competition this season, and it was Shamrock Rovers that knocked them out.

Shamrock Rovers' form in recent years does make me wonder whether it might be possible for them to play in the group stages of the Champions League at some point - it's probably a long shot, but seeing a Kazakh team manage it, and their coefficient is lower than Ireland's, makes me think it could just about happen with a good seeding and a favourable draw in the Champions path.

In terms of players that might contribute to the Ireland senior team in a meaningful way at some point, Honohan and Noonan are the obvious ones, and who knows about Ozhianvuna at this point. Don't see it happening for Mandroiu personally. I'm also slightly biased here in that I have an extended family member in the Rovers team, but realistically he's not going to play for Ireland at senior level either.

But absolutely no harm to have a thread on them in this section, it will be interesting to see how they get on against some very decent opposition this autumn.

[Acornvilla]

With some off the top of my head math, if Rovers were to equal what they did last season, 5 years in a row, they would have a coefficient high enough to be seeded in the Champions League playoff round. They'd still be playing a big team at that point but it's not completely impossible, they'd likely have improved and grown as a club in that time with the huge finances and experience they'd have amassed. It would probably be a disaster for everyone else thou! More likely to happen is, they'll randomly lose the odd league and get an unlucky draw now or then. Or even excel and make the Europa league which could conversely be bad for that years coefficient as points would be tough to come by in the league phase I'd imagine. The floor of that tournament has been raised considerably imo, even if the ceiling has also been reduced somewhat with the loss of CL 3rd place group stage teams.

From a purely coeffcient standpoint it's probably important Pats qualify for Europe again next season Pat's would be seeded in Conference League Rnd 1/2, and would have a maybe 30/40% chance of being an EL rnd 1 seed. They're not miles away from a Conference rnd 3 seeding at this point but that would take 5 full seasons in a row of always making it to the 3rd or PO to guarantee it, more or less.

The Conference league has given everyone a chance to get about 3 rounds of football in yearly with some luck if they show up on the day and play to their ability, but it rarely happens that 4 clubs show up at once, the year we do will be a clear sign of real depth developing, but the seedings will always have us at somewhat a disadvantage building too much, so we really heavily rely on Champions dragging the whole league with them to a point. This season I think everyone met expectations, the Drogheda debacle aside, but Rovers being a clear standout.

When it comes to my list of Rovers prospects, Noonan is excellent and physically ready for men's football ofc, the senior NT is a few years away at best. Ozhianvuna and O' Sullivan are way too young to make much impact at Rovers even but I'm still looking forward to seeing how the 3 of them fare even if 2 just get cameos, it's invaluable experience at a decent level.

I have been really impressed by Matt Healy, I think there's a real player there, he's just turned 23 with close to 100 apps at LOI PD and Belgian 2nd tier experience, and a solid number of u21 international apps. I think he will continue to improve, very difficult to judge someone's ceiling but he's better than I thought he was honestly. Honohan is ready now, he's still a bit raw technically but he is a high level athlete, brave and has a solid head on his shoulders, he still looks a bit like a really powerful centerback playing wingback, but somehow he's making it work for him, he has improved technically as years have passed, he'll surely leave in Christmas unless they make the Playoffs again, even then, maybe he will get an offer worth taking. A bit like Matt but to an extreme he has grown in to a far better footballer than I thought he would be.

Mandriou is an enigma, the man has great ability, and he can have a great work ethic when he wants to, he's also pretty tall and strong for a technical attacking midfielder. Why he's still in Ireland is anyone's guess, he has had offers abroad and above L1 level apparently, maybe there's a reason he wants to live in Dublin. I think he'd love playing in the Dutch or Portuguese league and we might suddenly have a very different opinion of him. The goal in the Azores was lovely skill, I think he was strong in the 2nd leg as well, he's well able for at least that level if he wants to be. I don't think he's quite in the Jack Byrne bracket, or even G. Burke, who are clearly very talented footballers, but have constant injury issues and have to be managed, I actually think Burke is wonderful and in another life could have been an exceptional player, whatever about the nonsense Byrne has gotten himself in to, so I don't see them as similar personalities, just ability and injury profiles that have held them back from reaching their potential. I am hoping we see the best of Mandriou until Christmas and find out what he's really capable of on a big stage.