UEFA Coefficient

[CollegeTillIDie]

AIK Solna are currently 7th in the Swedish League as far as I can recall . I saw a League table for Sweden earlier this week, about 2 weeks old. So they are not as strong as last season.

[pete]

Helsingborgs is not a bad draw for Drogs as they are only 10th in the Swedish League. 2nd best draw after Dunfirmline.

[higgins]

Home Win and an Away draw.
If 1st in the Eirom league can't do away with 10th in the Swedish League it's the biggest sign yet that we've gone backwards this season.

Great Draw for Drogheda and probably a full house in Dalymount with hooped jerseys looking out for their hero.

[pete]

Home Win and an Away draw.
If 1st in the Eirom league can't do away with 10th in the Swedish League it's the biggest sign yet that we've gone backwards this season.

I don't think its a foregone conclusion but the odds are good for Drogs. Helsingborg are not as good as Malmo, Djungardens or even Hammarby. Helsingborg did how beat Estonian team 9-0 on aggregate as opposed to Drogs 4-1 win against inferior opposition...

[DmanDmythDledge]

Home Win and an Away draw.

Which would put us ahead of Moldova.

[Torn-Ado]

Home Win and an Away draw.
If 1st in the Eirom league can't do away with 10th in the Swedish League it's the biggest sign yet that we've gone backwards this season.

Great Draw for Drogheda and probably a full house in Dalymount with hooped jerseys looking out for their hero.

Take one look at Irish teams results in Europe this season and compare that to Swedish teams in Europe.

[swinfordfc]

Lads,
we 34th and with moldova teams all out and Hungary teams in trouble - next year could see us up to 33rd if Drogs get a one win at least!

[higgins]

I think some people are watching a different game to the rest of us !

Theres two reasons we need a higher coefficient. Thats to become seeded in the Champions League and the UEFA Cup. Thats for starters, we can look at 2nd Round automatic qualification in a few years time.

Champions League: We're high enough now to be seeded so job complete

UEFA Cup: We're floating at about 7th or 8th from around 14 teams from the Northern Region that go into the Northern Section of the draw. Passing Moldova won't do us any good at all.

Lithuania and then Finland are our targets.

HOWEVER!!!
Norway have now gone from 19th to 18th I think it is and will go straight into the 2nd Round. In effect they have lowered the number of teams from the Northern region in the first round. If things stay like they are we should be seeded! thanks to Norway, not ourselves...

Job complete ?

[Cymro]

Being seeded/unseeded doesn't actually count for that much in my opinion. There is about a 20% probability of drawing a team from a league that is significantly stronger or weaker than the norm. So essentially that means a 10% chance of drawing either a really strong side or a 'weak' side (not that Drogheda even saw that great a benefit from drawing the lowest ranked side in the draw). Hence my point. 80-90% of european games in the first round will be between two sides of relatively similar ability. And if you're seeded there's a pretty good chance of getting a side from Kazakhstan, Armenia or Azerbaijan, and that is not something you want. Think about it would you prefer a Lithuanian/Latvian/Finnish side to journeys over to, essentially, Asia? I know what I'd rather have and i think the results from this year back that up.

The main reason for coefficients is basically bragging rights over other leagues and a yardstick for how your league measures up, until you get to the stage where entering at the second round is a possibility, and realistically that may never happen for Irish sides, or at least not for several years yet.

[Snoop Drog]

The main reason for coefficients is basically bragging rights over other leagues.

The main reason is to give UCD fans something to do/ another reason to moan.

[ifk101]

Being seeded/unseeded doesn't actually count for that much in my opinion. There is about a 20% probability of drawing a team from a league that is significantly stronger or weaker than the norm. So essentially that means a 10% chance of drawing either a really strong side or a 'weak' side (not that Drogheda even saw that great a benefit from drawing the lowest ranked side in the draw). Hence my point. 80-90% of european games in the first round will be between two sides of relatively similar ability. And if you're seeded there's a pretty good chance of getting a side from Kazakhstan, Armenia or Azerbaijan, and that is not something you want. Think about it would you prefer a Lithuanian/Latvian/Finnish side to journeys over to, essentially, Asia? I know what I'd rather have and i think the results from this year back that up.

The main reason for coefficients is basically bragging rights over other leagues and a yardstick for how your league measures up, until you get to the stage where entering at the second round is a possibility, and realistically that may never happen for Irish sides, or at least not for several years yet.

I don't agree with you. Seeding in the UEFA is a massive advantage because the draw is divided in regional groups. There's no trips to Asia here and all the unseeded teams are very beatable. The unseeded teams in the Northern regions conceded plenty of goals this year - and I include Pats in this - so it is clearly more advantegous to be seeded. Also only two unseeded teams won their ties in the Northern region this year (out of 16 matches) so there is a clear link between being seeded and winning the tie.

Champions League is different. There are a number of decent unseeded teams but being seeded has helped LOI teams in recent years. There are a few noticeable exceptions but the LOI representatives have predominately progressed a round in this competition when they were seeded.

I also don't agree with your assessment that 80% of teams in the first round are of similar ability. It must be remembered that these are cup games and cup games by their nature can throw up surprises. Teams are also unfamilar with each other and in many cases are over-cautious in their approach to these games simply because they know nothing about the opposition.

[bigmac]

(not that Drogheda even saw that great a benefit from drawing the lowest ranked side in the draw).

Compare the benefit of going through despite one awful game to the punishment that Pats were handed for not being seeded in the Uefa.
If you're unseeded, then I would say that (at the level the EL is at - which would be upper half of the non-seeds) you have about a 50% chance of getting a beatable team - in fairness, while Irish teams have a good chance against the Scandinavian sides, the top sides over there would always be favourites to go through.
On the other hand, if a team is seeded, then there's a roughly 50% chance that they draw a team that they're certain to go through against. The difference between seeds and non-seeds in the UEFA is that non-seeds need a good draw to have a chance of going through, whereas a good draw for the seeded team virtually guarantees them passage.

[Cymro]

I don't agree with you. Seeding in the UEFA is a massive advantage because the draw is divided in regional groups. There's no trips to Asia here and all the unseeded teams are very beatable. The unseeded teams in the Northern regions conceded plenty of goals this year - and I include Pats in this - so it is clearly more advantegous to be seeded. Also only two unseeded teams won their ties in the Northern region this year (out of 16 matches) so there is a clear link between being seeded and winning the tie.

Champions League is different. There are a number of decent unseeded teams but being seeded has helped LOI teams in recent years. There are a few noticeable exceptions but the LOI representatives have predominately progressed a round in this competition when they were seeded.

I also don't agree with your assessment that 80% of teams in the first round are of similar ability. It must be remembered that these are cup games and cup games by their nature can throw up surprises. Teams are also unfamilar with each other and in many cases are over-cautious in their approach to these games simply because they know nothing about the opposition.

I agree that the UEFA Cup is different to the Champions' League, but that's about all I agree with from this.

I think at least in the Champions' League the two teams in any given tie will be of relatively similar ability. UEFA Cup is different because you often get teams who are nowhere in their league system qualifying via a cup. In Champions' League it is definitely evenly matched-nearly all the ties were decided by the odd goal or two this year.

Seeding is overrated. I think St. Pats might have got through had they not drawn Odense, likewise, Drogheda may have struggled had they got a team that wasn't from San Marino, and they still couldn't eat them in the away leg!

Conversely I doubt 80% of the draws that the Welsh sides could have got had they been seeded would have yielded a much different result. We a) aren't quite good enough, although we're getting there, and b) aren't match fit when the games are played.

[pete]

Being seeded/unseeded doesn't actually count for that much in my opinion.

Sorry but that is rubbish.

Seeding is a massive advantage in the Uefa Cup & is pretty much guarantees progress to the 2nd round. Even in the CL you have more or less 50% chance of drawing easy countries like Andorra, San Marino, NI, Wales etc...

[Cymro]

Sorry but that is rubbish.

Seeding is a massive advantage in the Uefa Cup & is pretty much guarantees progress to the 2nd round. Even in the CL you have more or less 50% chance of drawing easy countries like Andorra, San Marino, NI, Wales etc...

Instead of rolling your eyes and calling it rubbish could you please actually read through the last post and think about some of the points I made. 80% of the time whether you're seeded or unseeded you'll face a team of roughly similar ability.

Again, Lithuanian, Latvian etc teams are probably not a huge difference in standard to NI and Welsh sides, as results have shown, certainly in terms of Welsh sides anyway. And you're more likely to meet a side of average ability rather than exceptionally strong or weak.

And of course being unseeded means you might get lucky and draw an Eircom league side for a comfortable passage through.

(That comment was tongue in cheek fyi, but if you're going to be childish about this then so will I.)

To sum up seeding is useful but hardly the be all and end all. bigmac I see your point and agree to an extent but maintain that most of the time you're likely to get a side of fairly similar ability regardless of seeding. The St Patricks and Drogheda scenario is more a fluke example of both extremes rather than the par for the course if you will.

[micls]

80% of the time whether you're seeded or unseeded you'll face a team of roughly similar ability.

If thats the case why did the seeded team win over 80% of the matches this year?

Of course it makes a difference, even if only a slight one. You might be slightly better than them rather than slightly worse

[Dodge]

Ourselves and Drogheda had the same co-efficient point but they were seeded and we weren't. They got the worst team in the draw, we got the best team in the draw (co-efficient;y speaking anyway)

[Cymro]

If thats the case why did the seeded team win over 80% of the matches this year?

Of course it makes a difference, even if only a slight one. You might be slightly better than them rather than slightly worse

Of course it makes a slight difference, but my argument is not a general one but one applied to a specific club.

My point is that club X is not going to find it too much harder to get past FBK Kaunas than they will to get past Linfield or Pyunik. There may be a slight difference but it isn't worth making a huge deal out of.

The majority of seeded teams did win their ties but they were generally close over two legs. TNS losing out on away goals, Linfield by 1, etc. I can only think of about 2 or 3 occasions where one side was well and truly stuffed in Europe this year and that's in all competitions.

[OneRedArmy]

People appear to be getting slightly mixed up with cause and effect again (not for the first time).

Seeding and coefficients in general only reflect how well the League is doing over a defined time period.

The League has generally improved quite a bit, comparatively, over the last few years and this is reflected in the fact that unseeded EL clubs beat and drew with a number of seeded clubs over the past few years. This resulted in the EL clubs becoming seeded (CL) or close to seeded (UEFA).

However, as the coefficients and therefore seedings, work on a 5 year rolling average they will always lag the "realtime" comparative level of the League. This is precisely why Irish teams won when they weren't seeds (the League was comparatively on the up) and conversely why seeded Swedish teams kept losing (their League was on the way down).

Therefore the assumption that seeds are a given to go through is patently ridiculous. The standards of Irish football has dropped this season due to a number of factors and this is reflected in the results (whether this is a blip or a longer term issue will become apparent over the next few years).

Coefficients are fine as long as the limitations are acknowledged, but some people seem to think of them and by extension seedings, as some sort of holy grail.

Never has the phrase "past performance is no guarantee of future return" been more relevant than in this discussion.

[micls]

My point is that club X is not going to find it too much harder to get past FBK Kaunas than they will to get past Linfield or Pyunik. There may be a slight difference but it isn't worth making a huge deal out of.

They clearly will find it much harder, how is it not worth making a big deal out of when 80% of non seeded teams found it too hard......even if its only a slight difference in quality its one that clearly makes a difference in who qualifies