Coefficientwatch

[Bully Wee Villa]

The League of Ireland has improved massively in recent years. I don't know if summer football is the sole reason, or a reason at all, but it's worth considering.

I'd rather watch Clyde vs Berwick in July than Clyde vs Celtic Colts in February.

[vikingTON]

1 hour ago, Trump said:

Don't know if it's been mentioned or not but the league of Ireland will have more teams than us in the second round of Europa League qualification. Are those teams better than us? Possibly. Are they fitter and more prepared than us as they're half way through a season? Definitely.

The Slovak league had all three of its entrants Progrés to QR2 and their season doesn't start until the end of this month. Their 'Saint Johnstone' level of entrant also had a much harder tie against the Serbian side Vojvodina which it duly won. The Slovak domestic league remains weaker and far, far poorer in financial terms than its Scottish equivalent though. 

There is no legitimate excuse for falling at the first hurdle to micro-state dross. That is chiefly down to Rangers being an absolute shambles and Tommy Wright being a tactical dinosaur. 

[Anthony Fitzgerald]

The Slovak league had all three of its entrants Progrés to QR2 and their season doesn't start until the end of this month. Their 'Saint Johnstone' level of entrant also had a much harder tie against the Serbian side Vojvodina which it duly won. The Slovak domestic league remains weaker and far, far poorer in financial terms than its Scottish equivalent though. 
There is no legitimate excuse for falling at the first hurdle to micro-state dross. That is chiefly down to Rangers being an absolute shambles and Tommy Wright being a tactical dinosaur. 

Okay so that's one example each. I still think both of our clubs would have faired better if we had an alternative calendar. I don't think that means we'd guaranteed get all our teams into the competition itself, the lack of quality would catch up with them at some point.

[tarapoa]

From AFC's perspective we played three times in QR1 over the last three seasons..

• 14/15 - Daugava Riga were the worst side I've ever seen - but I reckon the 180 minutes of competitive fitba helped us beat Groningen, and then we were competitive enough against Sociedad.
• Two seasons back, it was Shkendija of Macedonia at that stage. Not sure if we underestimated them (and I notice they've been ripping up these early rounds since), but we were very lucky to go through that one due to an away goal.......as they bossed they last half hour in the second leg at Pittodrie and should have taken at least one of their chances. Again, though we were much better in the next two rounds, beating Rijeka in their fortress (where Sevilla, Lyon and Feyenoord couldn't) and having a close tie with the rich Kazakhs, Kairat.
• Last year, we were dreadful ourselves in Luxembourg against Fola Esch, but did enough at Pittodrie in the first leg to squeeze through.  It was the worst I'd seen us under McInnes over in the very stadium where Sevco lost, but then in the next round, we beat the seeded Ventspils comfortably - and really should have beaten Maribor, but for missed chances in both matches, including Rooney's first ever penalty miss and a scandalous referee.

Conclusion - from the evidence I have seen in the past three seasons - it's the fact our very first competitive match is a European tie seems to be extremely dangerous for Scots clubs, and for that reason the Siroki Brijeg tie coming up worries me more than it would if it was in September like the good old days. 

Maybe it's the fact we need to play at pace and tempo to have any chance against technically better opponents - if the players are breathing out of their erses in the heat of the summer, they will be incohesive and error-prone - with the outcome that the whole thing is over before it starts.

I'm a traditionalist and against a complete summer season - but some kind of hybrid compromise may be possible, with two shorter breaks, and matches timed so that the first European ties are on the back of at least four domestic matches.

Edited July 7, 2017 by tarapoa

[Sergeant Wilson]

2 hours ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

The League of Ireland has improved massively in recent years. I don't know if summer football is the sole reason, or a reason at all, but it's worth considering.

I'd rather watch Clyde vs Berwick in July than Clyde vs Celtic Colts in February.

Aye, the temperature can get in to double figures at Broadwood in July.

[Bully Wee Villa]

Only if the first figure is "-".

[HibeeJibee]

To inject some facts about Eire: their league is currently ranked 41st out of 55. When they made the switch they were actually in the high 30s. Two of their clubs progressed last night - though against hardly formidable opponents from Estonia and Iceland, albeit I accept ours lost v Lithuanian and Luxembourger opposition! - but the other was humiliated 10-2. They have only ever got clubs into groupstages on 2 occasions. They are the only league to have made the switch in that direction and indeed more leagues including Russia and Armenia have gone the other way. Overall such leagues have poor record for reaching groups, and only Belarus (20th) are ranked in top 20.

If you consider the attendance aspect then in Eire they rose for 2 seasons after the switch but have since fallen consistently season-by-season and are now well below the start point.

Also in Eire they don't have any home-based internationals so they can play through international breaks and vitally play through June when there are qualifiers or finals tournaments.


Finally - from next season only 13 out of 48 places in EL groups are available for clubs in the qualifying rounds. Rest go to automatic qualifiers and separate CL losers pathway.

There will be 141 clubs going for those 13 places. Among them there will be 13 clubs from the top 9 leagues alone. No matter how good they are or well they play, it's unlikely our clubs are going to get near EL groups, due to that.

Edited July 7, 2017 by HibeeJibee

[Bully Wee Villa]

Their fans are less likely to get frostbite though.

[10menwent2mow]

The system for next year looks a total shambles. Champions of countries from 18-51 having to play 4 qualifiers for the CL and 4th place from the Top 4 leagues getting straight in. Even teams finishing 2nd in league ranked 15 only have to play 3 games while champion of league 18 plays 4.

Don't even get me started on the Europa League. 16 teams parachuted in from Champions League qualifying will qualify for the groups and only 13 teams will make it from Europa League qualifying. Scottish teams could win 3 ties and fall at the final hurdle whereas teams can get punted at the first time of asking in CL qualifying and make the groups. Farcical.

[Ranaldo Bairn]

All of which adds up to more reasons to not give a monkey's about qualifying or getting punted out.

International football is goosed for me, and European is pretty much finished too. Roll on the Betfred Cup group stages!

[EdTheDuck]

1 hour ago, HibeeJibee said:

To inject some facts about Eire: their league is currently ranked 41st out of 55. When they made the switch they were actually in the high 30s. Two of their clubs progressed last night - though against hardly formidable opponents from Estonia and Iceland, albeit I accept ours lost v Lithuanian and Luxembourger opposition! - but the other was humiliated 10-2. They have only ever got clubs into groupstages on 2 occasions. They are the only league to have made the switch in that direction and indeed more leagues including Russia and Armenia have gone the other way. Overall such leagues have poor record for reaching groups, and only Belarus (20th) are ranked in top 20.

If you consider the attendance aspect then in Eire they rose for 2 seasons after the switch but have since fallen consistently season-by-season and are now well below the start point.

Also in Eire they don't have any home-based internationals so they can play through international breaks and vitally play through June when there are qualifiers or finals tournaments.


Finally - from next season only 13 out of 48 places in EL groups are available for clubs in the qualifying rounds. Rest go to automatic qualifiers and separate CL losers pathway.

There will be 141 clubs going for those 13 places. Among them there will be 13 clubs from the top 9 leagues alone. No matter how good they are or well they play, it's unlikely our clubs are going to get near EL groups, due to that.

Georgia switched back to a Summer league last year and Moldova are in the process of doing same this year.

For what it's worth the Georgians split their 14 team league into 2 division of 7 and played a 12 game (with semi finals & final playoffs) transitional season running from August to December and their summer 10 team league started 4th March

Moldova's 10 team league played a transitional 18 game league starting July until December and then next year will begin their summer league.

Presumably if we switched we'd have a 22 game double round robin which normally takes us to the end of December/early January

Mind you, what would we gain? In World Cup & Euro seasons , with the finals usually early July wouldn't our league have shut down for a month anyway?

[Clyde01]

Switching to summer football is not the answer. Our sides should be able to show enough professionalism to overcome absolute diddies in the first qualifying round. Luxembourg season runs the same as ours FFS and they still managed to embarrass our third best team. Its inexcusable.

[Doonhamer doon south]

Switching to summer football is not the answer. Our sides should be able to show enough professionalism to overcome absolute diddies in the first qualifying round. Luxembourg season runs the same as ours FFS and they still managed to embarrass our third best team. Its inexcusable.

Absolutely this. It's really funny that a club of rangers size is being beat by part timers and then at the same time it's absolutely shocking that they are being beat by part timers. They are meant to be professional athletes and it's their job. To excuse it with no game time summer football etc etc is not an excuse. Not to a team from Luxembourg. Same with celtic last year it should quite simply not be happening.

Scotland will continue to slide down the coefficient and this type of conversation will continue to crop up

[Anthony Fitzgerald]

Switching to summer football is not the answer. Our sides should be able to show enough professionalism to overcome absolute diddies in the first qualifying round. Luxembourg season runs the same as ours FFS and they still managed to embarrass our third best team. Its inexcusable.

They should but they don't, that's the problem. It's not a one-off, it's happened consistently over the past few years. What's the alternative?

[RandomGuy.]

All of which adds up to more reasons to not give a monkey's about qualifying or getting punted out.

International football is goosed for me, and European is pretty much finished too. Roll on the Betfred Cup group stages!

Have to feel this is the thoughts of the modern fan. Uefa and FIFA seem to be forgetting they rely entirely on TV audiences, making boring, identical tournaments time after time will drive people away, I'd have thought.

[vikingTON]

Switching to summer football is not the answer. Our sides should be able to show enough professionalism to overcome absolute diddies in the first qualifying round. Luxembourg season runs the same as ours FFS and they still managed to embarrass our third best team. Its inexcusable.

While I agree with your point, we're in fact holding this debate on entirely the wrong terms. It doesn't actually matter whether or not a summer schedule would improve Scottish club performances in Europe. That isn't the benchmark by which we should organise the entire league schedule of our national game. There are 42 national clubs and about 30 more pyramid teams implicated in any such change: the schedule should broadly speaking meet the interests of the majority of those clubs rather than the four sides who qualify for European competition each year.

If Scotland had a flourishing, competitive domestic football setup across the board then I for one couldn't give a toss about how its representatives in Europe fared. Improve the domestic league on its own basis and progress in Europe will follow anyway. But the former is by far and away more important.

The idea that the Scottish leagues should exist as some sort of training camp for the handful of clubs that compete in Europe for a few weeks a year is as stupid and insulting as Project Brave's premise that the competitive club game should be sabotaged for the sake of the international team. As much as jaunts abroad are no doubt enjoyable, that isn't the financial basis of Scottish football. Screwing over the majority of clubs for either of those purposes is simply wrong.

[vikingTON]

They should but they don't, that's the problem. It's not a one-off, it's happened consistently over the past few years. What's the alternative?

 

Well the best alternative in these cases would be to replace The Rangers with a competent outfit and Tommy Wright with a manager who isn't trapped in the late Triassic period. 'More professional scouting of the European leagues' would be an obvious number 2, given that the resources of both Scottish clubs completely dwarfed their opponents.

 

Not sure why you skipped those points to opt for 'switch the entire Scottish game to an (even) earlier/summer campaign' - given that it's probably ranked about 30th of all 'alternatives' to the status quo. Did it have anything to do with gormless media pundits who used to be players peddling it as an obvious solution? Or tactical dinosaurs like Tommy Wright using it to deflect from his own failure?

 

Why is switching schedules necessary to defeat the fourth best team in Luxembourg, whose own league hasn't started yet? Be specific.

 

[Ranaldo Bairn]

56 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

 

Have to feel this is the thoughts of the modern fan. Uefa and FIFA seem to be forgetting they rely entirely on TV audiences, making boring, identical tournaments time after time will drive people away, I'd have thought.

 

Quite - although I'm nearly 45 and I think I'd adapt your statement to read "older fans thoughts upon modern football".

Younger punters don't seem bothered as much but we've seen the erosion of competition in the name of profit in the last 25 years and got more and more cheesed off. The very thought of getting a Sky or BT subscription to watch CL/EL football (unless a Scottish team was involved), or even EPL stuff, is a sick joke.

[BFTD]

1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:

Have to feel this is the thoughts of the modern fan. Uefa and FIFA seem to be forgetting they rely entirely on TV audiences, making boring, identical tournaments time after time will drive people away, I'd have thought.

 

You'd think but, then again, I keep expecting people to stop watching the Transformers movies.

[Sergeant Wilson]

12 hours ago, virginton said:

 

Well the best alternative in these cases would be to replace The Rangers with a competent outfit and Tommy Wright with a manager who isn't trapped in the late Triassic period. 'More professional scouting of the European leagues' would be an obvious number 2, given that the resources of both Scottish clubs completely dwarfed their opponents.

 

Not sure why you skipped those points to opt for 'switch the entire Scottish game to an (even) earlier/summer campaign' - given that it's probably ranked about 30th of all 'alternatives' to the status quo. Did it have anything to do with gormless media pundits who used to be players peddling it as an obvious solution? Or tactical dinosaurs like Tommy Wright using it to deflect from his own failure?

 

Why is switching schedules necessary to defeat the fourth best team in Luxembourg, whose own league hasn't started yet? Be specific.

 

Do you mean scouting to get better players for Scottish clubs? Or sending competent scouts to assess the opposition and maybe establish they are better than previously thought? Both might help.

Scouts, a word second only to Colts in this context, are usually the managers best mate from school.