Draws for first and second qualifying round takes place on Monday.
Crusaders, Celtic and Dundalk will be flying the flag for Ireland at this stage.
The first round features:
The New Saints FC (WAL)
FC Levadia Tallinn (EST)
FC Pyunik (ARM)
FC Santa Coloma (AND)
Crusaders FC (NIR)
B36 TĂłrshavn (FRO)
Lincoln FC (GIB)
SS Folgore (SMR)
The second round will have:
Seeded:
FC Steaua BucureĹźti (ROU)
Celtic FC (SCO)
APOEL FC (CYP)
FC BATE Borisov (BLR)
PFC Ludogorets Razgrad (BUL)
GNK Dinamo Zagreb (CRO)
NK Maribor (SVN)
Maccabi Tel-Aviv FC (ISR)
KKS Lech Poznań (POL)
FK Partizan (SRB)
Malmö FF (SWE)
QarabaÄź FK (AZE)
HJK Helsinki (FIN)
Molde FK (NOR)
FC Midtjylland (DEN)
Videoton FC (HUN)
KF Skënderbeu (ALB)
Unseeded
FK Sarajevo (BIH)
FK Ventspils (LVA)
FC Dila Gori (GEO)
FK AS TrenÄŤĂn (SVK)
FK Žalgiris Vilnius (LTU)
FC Astana (KAZ)
FC Milsami Orhei (MDA)
FK Rudar Pljevlja (MNE)
FK Vardar (MKD)
Stjarnan (ISL)
CS Fola Esch (LUX)
Dundalk FC (IRL)
Hibernians FC (MLT)
4 winners from first round
Stjarnan lost their third successive home game last night? They have 15 points from 11 matches so far this season. They may have more match fitness than Celtic but they seem to be in really poor form.
@Rocko as you fucked up the forum you wont really have my full engagement at what is one of my favourite times of the year for football
anyway, not sure if you watched KR Reykjavik and Cork City on Setanta the other night in the UEFA cup qualifier, it was 1 1 from the first leg at the X and Cork took an early lead in Iceland, In fairness the locals went down to ten men before the half , Cork sat back for the remainder of the affair drawing on the Icelandic side who eventually equalised and won in ET with the 10 men,
A few points to take from the game were
cork had this crowd rattled with high balls up to O Sullivan in the opening 20 mins, they also didnt like Healy and Bennet kicking the fuck out them in the midde
what lost if for Cork was they sat back and allowed KR play, they played a very good standard of ball and were very very fit with 10 men, Their skill level was higher than Cork, id say you’d be talking league 1 type
KR had a couple of Icelandic internationals, but id expect Celtic to be a better standard here, if this game can be used as a baseline for Icelandic teams its that they are very fit at this time of year and can play football,
as an aside, notable result of last week apart from that wonderful result from UCD must have been the Lincoln Red Imps from Gibralter progressing to the second round of champions league qualifying
ill get a prestigous UEFA cup thread going later where we can all unite behind Beitar Jerusalem who are involved this year
hardest possible draw TSG, a result is not beyond them tho.
BATE is some success story, in 2003 the BSC put them out if the champions league, 9 years later they beat Bayern Munich and are now group stage regulars
as an aside i see the Cruyffs managed to lure Slavisa Jokanaovic away from Watford to Maccabi TA, this was utterly bizarre i thought, anyone have any commnents on this, i know Maccabi have a fuck load of cash but surely the EPL is a better draw than Ligat Al, did Watford want him out does anyone know?
I saw some of this. Cork really had themselves to blame for being so negative. Celtic played KR last year and they’re not great by any stretch. This was just before Legia and Maribor both beat Celtic, so a comfortablish win against KR then really just shows up KR for the poor side they are. Stjarnan are struggling halfway down the table this season, they shouldn’t pose too many problems on a form-line through KR.
id agree with that
that english lad KR had upfront was nippy enough, Gary Martin, tho looking at his wiki profile he never made it in the english lower leagues and has plodded thru the scandanavian leagues… in short Icelandic football seems to be on a par to say LOI, Celtic wont have too many issues id say
Both Scepovic and Stokes are featuring for a development squad type team tonight in a testimonial. Don’t think either were realistically going to be starting on Wednesday but that’s them definitively ruled out now. Stokes doesn’t seem to be high in Ronny’s plans so far this (pre) season.
how’s your fucking coefficient @Rocko you cunt?
St Johnstone didnt do “us” any favors anyway last week, SPL was 1/2 in the UEFA qualifiers, LOI was 2/4 , fuck you you horrid orange bastard
watched the Maccabi game, they were deplorably bad, will prob beat them next week but they are at nothing i think if this is the attitide they have to European football\
I see Partisan scraped past some crowd from Georgia only one nothing, the disintegration of Serbian club football in Europe astounds me, ok i know Red Star are decimated financially but still they had 4 starters on the U 20 team that beat Brazil and have what i believe is the best youth system bar Ajax in the world… they were thumped by a crowd form kazakstan last week in the uefa cup… puzzling
put a one to watch sticker on Skenderbau from Albania… dark horses for group stage