no to mention the qualifying “Draw” to ensure a host nation qualifies for euro2020
here we are group 3
holland
germany
and up next third seeds its ROI ( cue scramble and JD furiously waving his arms, ok ok they’ll be replaced by northern ireland- the ROI will instead play, the swiss and denmark)
moving on to 5th seeds
denmark
swiss
roi
georgia
and up next we have … azerbaijan… JD again intervenes…
sorry sorry they cant be paired with the ROI , it is in fact Gibraltar
Im surprised that Uefa haven’t come up with a third European competition for club sides from smaller nations who fail to make the group stages of the Europa League. Maybe 32 or 64 sides from outside the top 10 leagues and outside the top 125 in Uefa club coefficient who don’t make champions league or Europa Group stages. Two legs straight knock out competition, would give sides from smaller leagues a better chance of making into the Europa and bettering their own league with additional prize money.
There is more that enough money in Uefa to accommodate it.
oh that third competition is in the works allright…
That’s coming soon I believe.
They are currently reviewing the structure of UEFA competitions and have proposed a third tier.
In possibly positive news the committee for competitions was selected last week and it is represented by Lawwell (Celtic), Van der Sar (Ajax), some lad from Arsenal and some lad from Real Madrid.
Ajax have been quite vocal about the existing format and Celtic equally so, this might be an opportunity for a decent reform.
It’ll be harder for a top team to get knocked out of Europe than to stay in it.
Yes, Lurgan Celtic would probably be the better supported side in Lurgan. Glenavon would draw a base from Craigavon too.
In what way? That it’s hard for Ajax to make the groups automatically?
oh jesus
a load of paddies play have played from Glenavon over the years - tony grant there is in charge of their underage structure - theyve a young fella from limerick there as well
Yeah. That they won the Dutch league last season and have to play 2 tough qualifying rounds to get to the same stage as Bayer Leverkusen or Atalanta.
It’s a decent enough point infairness to them. Would their coefficent not be off the chain after last year? I thought it was on a club by club basis now rather country?
Nevermind sorry I asked
No your club ranking determines your seeding in whatever round you are in. Your country ranking (an aggregate of all clubs in your country) determines what round you enter. And even then it’s manipulated further to have seedings reserved for the champions of the top leagues because God forbid Leicester wouldn’t be top seeds after not having played in Europe in ages.
Anyway, I imagine the pressure on Celtic and Ajax will be to accept reform of lesser competitions (better promoted, slim chance of getting to the top table, another safety net of a third competition) in exchange for keeping the entry to the top competition weighted in favour of the big leagues. So not dissimilar to the Nations League - if you excel in your shitty competition, you can play in ours for one year but the other teams in our competition will be there every year and keep all the money. But we will let you play on Friday nights so nothing stopping your second rate competition from succeeding.
Eoin Bradley played for them too.
Loads of Paddy’s with Linfield these days, ex Armagh forward Ryan Henderson was with them for a few years.
The Eredivisie’s results in Europe were horrendous for years before last season tbf. It looks unfair based on last year’s performance from them but it isn’t too bad really. Germany should not be getting 4 places though
It’s generally tv audiences that matter
It’s coefficient points that matter. Celtic would get more TV viewers than Leipzig on a Tuesday or Wednesday Champions League game I’d wager
I have a terrible feeling about this game.
It’ll either be 3-0 to AIK or Celtic will scrape through after losing 3-1.
In the latter scenario Celtic will score late on after being three down or AIK will score the fourth goal of the game with 10-15 minutes left and absolutely batter Celtic for the remainder of the game.
3-1 Celtic
