EU Old Firm patsies

[ian1964 10,761]

THE Old Firm should brace themselves for FIVE years in the Champions League wilderness.

The gloomy prediction came last night from former Scotland winger Pat Nevin.

 

He reckons this will be the last season a Scottish club competes in the group stage until at least 2013.

 

Rangers went straight into the groups this season, but future champions will need to qualify against seeded sides from England, Spain, Italy and Germany.

 

Nevin said: "We're going through a bad phase. It's coincided with our clubs' skint phase and the collapse of Setanta.

 

"However, these periods tend to last for only so long and we should be through it in about four or five years.

 

"The SPL have a get-out clause in their Sky/ESPN deal which allows talks with someone else in 2012.

 

"We should be over the worst of the recession by then. Hopefully clubs will be able to buy better players.

 

"Coming seasons will be difficult for our clubs in Europe. That's not being negative, it's being realistic."

 

http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/sport/spl/2564588/EU-Old-Firm-patsies.html

[fraser54 0]

Shut it Pat

We will be back every year :D

[andrew_2010 0]

Rangers went straight into the groups this season, but future champions will need to qualify against seeded sides from England, Spain, Italy and Germany.

 

That is utter B*llsh*t.

 

The champions that don't go straight into the group stages go into a qualifying phase with other champions only. Thus more "champions" and less "runners up" in the "CHAMPIONS LEAGUE"!

 

honestly, how do some journo's not get this? its NOT that complicated! and Bert Kassies website is the goto place for any of this info.

 

If we finish second (and we still get a runner up to enter qualification) only then will we have the possibility of drawing an English, Spanish or German team. And as far as seeding goes, for the "runners up play off" round this year, the UNSEEDED teams are possibly trickier ties eg fiorentina and athletico madrid if i remember correctly (although that could change depending who goes through eg pana and sporting!)

 

The shambolic performance of the nonOF teams, as well as some poor runs by us and them will be hitting the co-efficient pretty heavily. I will not get into it now cos i need sleep, but im sure one of the writers (S_A ) could quite easily knock up an article about what the points would be like with just the OF or without the OF, and how hard it will be for the SFA/SPL to get a good tally this year because its diluted by SIX teams, 1 of which is already out (winning one qualifier) and 2 of which are 99.999 etc% out, with only another 2 qualifying wins in there.

 

Yes we are potentially facing some wilderness, and it is without a doubt, in my mind, the scottish leagues fault. and pat is talking pish.

 

rant over.... for now! :box:

[Bluedell 5,679]

Thanks Andrew. I hadn't understood that before.

 

So the 3rd round draw for the "Champions section" is:

 

Salzburg (AUT) or Bohemian (IRL) v FC Pyunik (ARM) or Dynamo Zagreb (CRO)

Zrinjski (BIH) or Slovan Bratislava (SVK) v Olympiakos (GRE)

FC Zurich (SUI) v WIT Georgia (GEO) or NK Maribor (SLO)

EB/Streymur (FAR) or Apoel (CYP) v Rhyl (WAL) or Partizan (SRB)

International Turku (FIN) or Sheriff (MDA) v Slavia Prague (CZE)

Hafnarfjordur (ISL) or Aktobe (KAZ) v Maccabi Haifa (ISR) or Glentoran (NIR)

Ekranas (LTU) or FK Baku (AZE) v Levski Sofia (BUL) or Sant Julia (AND)

Ventspils (LVA) or Dudelange (LUX) v Makedonija Skopje (MKD) or Bate Borisov (BLR)

Wisla Krakow (POL) or Levadia Tallinn (EST) v Debreceni (HUN) or Kalmar (SWE)

FC Copenhagen (DEN) or FK Mogren (MNE) v Tirana (ALB)

 

The 10 winners of these games then get drawn against each other in the 4th round and the 5 winners then proceed into the group sections. Simples!

 

Looking at it, there's no reason why the league winners from Scotland wouldn't have a good chance of qualifying.

[andrew_2010 0]

Thanks Andrew. I hadn't understood that before.

 

So the 3rd round draw for the "Champions section" is:

 

Salzburg (AUT) or Bohemian (IRL) v FC Pyunik (ARM) or Dynamo Zagreb (CRO)

Zrinjski (BIH) or Slovan Bratislava (SVK) v Olympiakos (GRE)

FC Zurich (SUI) v WIT Georgia (GEO) or NK Maribor (SLO)

EB/Streymur (FAR) or Apoel (CYP) v Rhyl (WAL) or Partizan (SRB)

International Turku (FIN) or Sheriff (MDA) v Slavia Prague (CZE)

Hafnarfjordur (ISL) or Aktobe (KAZ) v Maccabi Haifa (ISR) or Glentoran (NIR)

Ekranas (LTU) or FK Baku (AZE) v Levski Sofia (BUL) or Sant Julia (AND)

Ventspils (LVA) or Dudelange (LUX) v Makedonija Skopje (MKD) or Bate Borisov (BLR)

Wisla Krakow (POL) or Levadia Tallinn (EST) v Debreceni (HUN) or Kalmar (SWE)

FC Copenhagen (DEN) or FK Mogren (MNE) v Tirana (ALB)

 

The 10 winners of these games then get drawn against each other in the 4th round and the 5 winners then proceed into the group sections. Simples!

 

Looking at it, there's no reason why the league winners from Scotland wouldn't have a good chance of qualifying.

 

BINGO!

 

You're spot on - so basically, we need to win the league for the next 9 hopefully 10 years () if we want a shot of qualifying. Would be a huge step to qualify via the runners-up route, especially as the bigger leagues just get stronger and stronger as they make more and more money, while thanks to the SPL our income and strength seems to be dwindeling.

 

In a few years time there is a high chance of only getting one spot in champs league anyway! If you check the country standings on Bert Kassies site it will list them by score and says how many places they get (and if i recall correctly) the location at which they enter the tournament/qualifiers. If not his website, then I may have stumbled across it on the uefa site. Any way, the info IS out there, and not too complicated... or it shouldn't be for people who call themselves professional journalists! Winds me right up the misinformation they put out there!

 

Hopefully BD and some of the others will have benefited from my ranting! :devil:

[Bluedell 5,679]

Yup, definitely benefited.

 

Here's the link to bert's site, which explains it well.

 

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/

[andrew_2010 0]

cheers for the link - was just being lazy! lol

 

I'm sure all this will still be relevant by the time the CL comes around for us, if no1 does write anything - i may have a bash trying to explain it around that time... pretty busy for the next two weeks at uni (big end of masters year project) and then im off to australia for 6 weeks!

 

Hint Hint S_ally

[Super_Ally 0]

When I read the OP my first thoughts were exactly what you wrote in your rant Andy.

 

If you, myself and no doubt hundreds of other fans were aware of this, how can a man who is paid for his knowledge of the game make such a massiver arse of himself. There truly is no excuse.

[Super_Ally 0]

Just seen this elsewhere and thought people may be interested to note:

 

Scotlands 5 years points contributing to next seasons entry (13th) 111.5

Us 57.5

Scum 37

The rest 17

[andrew_2010 0]

Just seen this elsewhere and thought people may be interested to note:

 

Not sure about those numbers... but i was thinking of looking into where scotland would be ranked if the old firm were considered a seperate league from the rest of the SPL - of course this would change things like qualification entry levels, but neglecting that - would be interesting to see where the rest of the scots would finish each year without us and them...

 

Not 100% sure there will be enough data to do that tho... cos individual clubs get a 3rd of their national points... It sounds confusing saying it out loud, but i seem to be able to follow it!

 

Trick is to keep it simple and look at which thing you are looking at first (country vs club) then work out how the two are related (club influence national, while that national total is divided by 3 and ADDED to the individuals clubs tally that contributed to the former national total - hope someone managed to follow that! lol)