UEFA Coefficient

[gspain]

Credit to BATE they have done incredibly well. Still bad news for us though as Belarus have an opportunity to leapfrog us. If BATE qualify they get 3 bonus points which will add 1.0 to the country coefficient.

BATE will laso earn a club coefficient and given they are 3 points clear with a game in hand in Belarus are likely to be in the CL next season and will be seeded in at least the first round.

The reason I'm watching scores is that we are in a battle with Hungary and Bosnia to see whose champions are seeded in next season's CL. As of tonight we have leapfrogged Bosnia and are likely to remain ahead of Hungary unless Gyor put Stuttgart out (lost 2-1 away).

Seedings (in theory anyway) lead to easier draws, more chances to get home and away wins and thus move up the rankings.

[pete]

AEK Athens 0 - 1 Omonia Nicosia

Cyprus club football on the rise.

[HarpoJoyce]

Credit to BATE they have done incredibly well. Still bad news for us though as Belarus have an opportunity to leapfrog us. If BATE qualify they get 3 bonus points which will add 1.0 to the country coefficient.................
The reason I'm watching scores is that we are in a battle with Hungary and Bosnia to see whose champions are seeded in next season's CL. As of tonight we have leapfrogged Bosnia and are likely to remain ahead of Hungary unless Gyor put Stuttgart out (lost 2-1 away).

Seedings (in theory anyway) lead to easier draws, more chances to get home and away wins and thus move up the rankings.

Thanks for the reply, yes I agree with applauding the individual performances. I'll just have to live with the very strong lens that the co-efficient is viewed through on foot.ie

But, the clubs of HUN and BiH are all from outside the capital and the Bosnians ones have had to deal with alot of nonsense 15 years ago. NK Zrinjski are playing out of Mostar http://www.uefa.com/footballeurope/c...=14/index.html while NK Siroki Brijeg used to play their UEFA games in Mostar but now play in the home town http://www.uefa.com/footballeurope/c...=14/index.html, somewhere South or East of Mostar.
How anyone would wish these teams ill, I don't know. Surely, LoI club fans should identify with them. (It's bad enough the gloating after the triumph over Moldova).

[HarpoJoyce]

AEK Athens 0 - 1 Omonia Nicosia

Cyprus club football on the rise.

'on the rise'....again.

When Omonia win 1-0 away from home it's called doing a 'Tolka'.
The team that loses to them are described as doing a 'Shamrock Rovers'.

[Sheridan]

Good result for APOEL Nicosia against Crvena Zvezda (2-2) despite the away goals.

No mystery surrounding the improved performance of Cypriot clubs in Europe; investment and ambition.

[paudie]

Good to see the likes of BATE, Anothorsis with a decent chance of getting through to the group stages.

Olympiacos make a living out of losing in the group stages and picking enough big bucks to dominate the Greek league.

[JC_GUFC]

Just further to all this the Access list for next season's European Competitions is up on the website http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/...ccess2009.html

The Access list uses the 2008 Rankings as leagues need to know now how many UEFA Cup places are up for grabs. Ireland are ranked 35th in the 2008 rankings so the qualifiers will be:

Champions League: Our Champions (And N Ireland) enter the 2nd Qualifying Round.
At this stage there will be the 31 national champions from countries ranked 16th - 47th (excluding Liechtenstein) plus the 3 winners from the 1st Qualifying Round.
Unfortunately we're still at the bottom end of this list so our Champions will almost certainly be unseeded. (though in 2010-11 we could well be seeded)
The 17 seeded sides will be from Switzerland, Bulgaria and Norway down to Slovenia, Finland and Latvia.
These 17 winners are then joined by the Champions of Belgium, Greece and Czech Republic and those 20 teams play 2 more qualifying rounds, guaranteeing 5 national champions from countries ranked 13th or lower a place in the group stages.
The losing team in the first of these rounds go into the UEFA Cup 4th Qualifying Round and the losing sides in the final qualifying round go directly to the UEFA Cup Group stages.
Our champions cannot be drawn against non-champions in the CL Qualifiers. Non-Champions of the top ranked countries have their own separate qualifiers.

UEFA Cup:
The main thing is we get an extra place next season!
The 2nd and 3rd place in the league go into the 1st qualifying round along with 48 other sides, which include 3 Fair Play qualifiers.
The good news is these 2 sides will almost certainly be seeded.
The 25 qualifiers from that round then join another 55 clubs, including our cup winners for the 2nd qualifying round. The top ranked teams in this round will be the 5th placed sides from Romania, Portugal and Holland.
The 40 winners in this round then get joined by 30 teams from the higher ranked nations - 6th from England, Spain & Italy etc.
These 35 winners are then joined by 24 clubs from the higher ranked nations, i.e. cup winners and 5th place from England, Spain and Italy etc. the 10 losers in the Champions League 2nd qualifying round for Champions and 5 losers of the Champions League 1st qualifying round for non champions. Giving 74 teams.

The 37 winners of these ties enter the UEFA Cup Group stages.

Well done to anyone who isn't totally confused...

[finnpark]

I can see Ireland passing out Scotland withing 5 years. Scotland are going to slip badly, if anyone sees Rangers and Celthick these days the standard is way lower than it used to be.

I think what will happen is that the Scottish league will slip and only will get 1 CL qualifier spot and then Celthick and Rangers will join the English League.

UK is officially one country anyway and should not get the 8 CL spots they are getting and God knows how many UEFA cup spots. They get spots for NI, Wales, Scotland and England but only have 1 Government

[Dodge]

keep it on topic ffs

[boovidge]

I can see Ireland passing out Scotland withing 5 years. Scotland are going to slip badly, if anyone sees Rangers and Celthick these days the standard is way lower than it used to be.

I think what will happen is that the Scottish league will slip and only will get 1 CL qualifier spot and then Celthick and Rangers will join the English League.

UK is officially one country anyway and should not get the 8 CL spots they are getting and God knows how many UEFA cup spots. They get spots for NI, Wales, Scotland and England but only have 1 Government

Actually all of the "home nations" have their own government except England (and there's considerable pressure for an English parliament). If we go by your logic then perhaps we should just have an EU league

[Dodge]

keep it on topic ffs

[bennocelt]

sorry ..........i asked a question..............got the answer..........

[gspain]

I can see Ireland passing out Scotland withing 5 years. Scotland are going to slip badly, if anyone sees Rangers and Celthick these days the standard is way lower than it used to be.

I think what will happen is that the Scottish league will slip and only will get 1 CL qualifier spot and then Celthick and Rangers will join the English League.

UK is officially one country anyway and should not get the 8 CL spots they are getting and God knows how many UEFA cup spots. They get spots for NI, Wales, Scotland and England but only have 1 Government

Celtic reached the last 16 of the CL.

Rangers lost in the UEFA Cup Final.

I think our clubs are capable of catching either team aka Kaunas beating Rangers but I can't see our league passing out their league. However I do think their other clubs are probably behind ours now based on European results (and not just Bohs v Aberdeen and Derry v Gretna).

[Stato]

Unfortunately we're still at the bottom end of this list so our Champions will almost certainly be unseeded.

Just want to clarify this as I don't think it's quite correct.

As I understand it, the table of country coefficients (or "Access List") as at the end of the 2007/08 European season determines the number of teams each country has and at what point those teams enter the competitions in the 2009/2010 season.

However, once the entrants are decided as above, the seedings are determined based on the individual club coefficients as at the end of 2008/2009 season.

Therefore, in theory if Pats were to win the league this season and get a win against Hertha, they may do enough to merit a seeding for 2009/2010 based on their own coefficient.

[Dodge]

Spot on Stato.

The seeding can only be known once all entrants are known.

[mattl]

Our champions WILL be definitely seeded next year. As Stato pointed out, the 2008 ranking is only used for the determination of how many spots you are allocated and what round you start in.

However, for the purposes of seeding, it is 2009 and the four years previous to that which are used. At the moment Ireland are in 30th place, with the worst case scenario now being 31st if Belarus overtake us (unlikely however).

Q1 in 2009 will have 34 countries compete, 17 seeded and 17 unseeded.

Therefore, countries ranked 16th-32nd will definitely be seeded.

Q2 in 2009 will have 20 team compete, 10 seeded and 10 unseeded. Countries ranked 13th-22nd will be seeded if all the seeds qualify. Sweden btw are ranked 23rd right now so if they at least keep that position and 1 seed should fail to make it through, there's obviously a chance an Irish team could draw a Swedish team in the CL 2nd Round. Which would make a massive difference instead of having to compete with the likes of teams from Ukraine, Romania, Serbia etc.

And if the Irish team gets past the 2nd CL round, then the worst case scenario is Group Stages of the Uefa Cup!

-------------------------------

Uefa Cup Seedings

Lets say all 3 Fairplay teams are higher ranked than us and are seeded.

Q1: 50 teams, 25 seeded and 25 unseeded.

Therefore individual co-efficients aside, countries ranked 22nd-40th are seeded (except for the third placed country in the 40th ranking).

So both second and third place teams from Ireland will definitely be seeded in Q1.


Q2: 80 Teams. Should all seeds go through it would looks like this:

Countries ranked 7th-30th (only the Cup Winner of the 30th).

If Ireland stay in 30th, Cup Winner will be seeded. If any of the seeds from Q1 fail to progress, Ireland will be have the benefit of being the first two spots to move into being seeded.

[JC_GUFC]

Actually you are right about that... The mantle of King of the Anoraks has now been passed to you... Watch those UCD ****ers they'll try and rob you for it!

[bigmac]

Therefore, countries ranked 16th-32nd will definitely be seeded.

Not 100% true. Teams ranked 16th to 32nd will definitely be seeded, and at the lower levels of coefficients, most teams do not have their own points so will just take a third of their country's points. However, teams from countries below us in the ranking that have a team coefficient from the last 5 years may well be seeded ahead of our champions.
Take Belarus as an example. At the moment, a Belarussian team qualifying for the CL will take a third of the country coefficient - 2.530. However, if BATE Borisov are their CL representatives, then they will add their team coefficient score to that. This means that currently they have a coefficient of 5.530 and as such will be definitely seeded.
At the moment, there are a few countries behind us in the rankings that have teams which would be ahead. Therefore we won't know whether our champions are seeded or not until we know who the qualifiers are.

In summary; our 30th spot puts us ahead of Latvia, Belarus, Iceland and Slovenia. Each of these countries has teams that would be seeded ahead of us at present

• If Ventspils win the league in Latvia (7 pts clear)
• If BATE win in Belarus (1 pt behind with game in hand)
• If Hafnarfjardar win in Iceland (5 pts behind with game in hand)
• If NK Maribor, Nova Gorica, or NK Domzale win in Slovenia (only 7 games in, Domzale top, Maribor in 3rd)

As you can see, it's pretty close, but it's still not looking great for us. If 3 out of those 4 countries go wrong, then our champions are unseeded next year

[mattl]

Bigmac - oh yeah very true, how could I forget the team co-efficients!

May not know in the CL then for a while but I think Derry will certainly be seeded thanks to their team co-efficient for Round 1 and possibly Round 2 in UP and if Pats can get any sort of result against Berlin they'll be the same.

[gspain]

We also have the CL winners spot that should work in our favour.

The 2009 winners will surely already qualify and not need the automatic space which will move everybody up. I think our champions will be OK.

Pats could also still gain extra points too and move us up.