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St Mirren European Tour 2024


Lex

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For the first time since 1987 we will be indulging in a bit of continental competition this summer.  We have sealed 5th spot and as the cup will be won by an ugly sister, that final European spot goes to the Super Saints.

We will enter the second qualifying round of the Europa Conference League. The first date for the diary is the draw on the 19th June, I believe we will be seeded and therefore we will be drawn against the winner of a first qualifying round tie, we will know on that date that we will be playing one of two possible teams. 

The dates below show we won't officially know who we will be playing on the 25th July until the 18th July, although we might have a fair idea depending on the score of the first leg. Do we book flights and accommodation after the first leg or...? We should be the favourites to win our first tie and if we do progress it's straight onto the next round the Thursday after. If we get to the playoff round - as Hibs did last year - we will have European football six Thursdays in a row from 25th July till the 29th August. That would be... expensive, and fantastic.

image.png.3cae586a21084b5db01f1ba845b1ced9.png

There seems to be around 50 potential opponents for the first tie from most of the UEFA leagues, the ties are no longer regionalised. It could be Montenegro, it could be Malta, it could be Moldova etc. If we do progress we should have a similar type of route to Hibs did last year  Their first match was against Inter Club d'Escaldes of Andorra, they lost the away leg 2-1 before winning the home leg 6-1. They then played Luzern of Switzerland, beating them 3-1 at Easter Road and drawing 2-2 over there before getting an 8-0 aggregate teaching by Villa in the playoff round. We should get a team from a diddy league like Andorra first, a team from a middling league like the Swiss league second, and if we make it by that a team from an elite league like the EPL in the playoffs.

In terms of expectations it's nice to be there and all that, but we should certainly be aiming to win that first tie. Like all Scottish teams, we are certainly capable of having a Connahs Quay Nomads/Birkirkara/Progress Niederkorn/Haf'jordur/Bohemians/Sligo Rovers/FC Vaduz etc moment and losing it, but we'd all be a bit gutted by that. The nightmare scenario is being bodied out by some Irish or Welsh team in that round and it not feeling like much more than one of these pre season tours we go on every year.

A good campaign would be winning that tie and then losing in the next round to a team like Luzern, no shame in that at all, that's the par performance. A great campaign would be getting past that team to the playoff round and losing to someone like Newcastle United. The dream is getting to the group stages, which would means knocking out a team from an elite league and having European football up till Christmas.

Credit cards would be maxed out all over Renfrewshire if that happened. We can but dream. 

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Thread of the year. Lex, work on your acceptance speech now, ahead of Div’s end of season awards ceremony.

I hope we get drawn against some sort of ‘name’ team. Someone everyone has heard of. There’s a chance we get pumped out against jobbers from Wales or part timers from Azerbaiturkmeniskzakstan, so might as well hope for a ‘proper’ European name to turn up at the SMiSA.

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1 hour ago, Lex said:

For the first time since 1987 we will be indulging in a bit of continental competition this summer.  We have sealed 5th spot and as the cup will be won by an ugly sister, that final European spot goes to the Super Saints.

We will enter the second qualifying round of the Europa Conference League. The first date for the diary is the draw on the 19th June, I believe we will be seeded and therefore we will be drawn against the winner of a first qualifying round tie, we will know on that date that we will be playing one of two possible teams. 

The dates below show we won't officially know who we will be playing on the 25th July until the 18th July, although we might have a fair idea depending on the score of the first leg. Do we book flights and accommodation after the first leg or...? We should be the favourites to win our first tie and if we do progress it's straight onto the next round the Thursday after. If we get to the playoff round - as Hibs did last year - we will have European football six Thursdays in a row from 25th July till the 29th August. That would be... expensive, and fantastic.

image.png.3cae586a21084b5db01f1ba845b1ced9.png

There seems to be around 50 potential opponents for the first tie from most of the UEFA leagues, the ties are no longer regionalised. It could be Montenegro, it could be Malta, it could be Moldova etc. If we do progress we should have a similar type of route to Hibs did last year  Their first match was against Inter Club d'Escaldes of Andorra, they lost the away leg 2-1 before winning the home leg 6-1. They then played Luzern of Switzerland, beating them 3-1 at Easter Road and drawing 2-2 over there before getting an 8-0 aggregate teaching by Villa in the playoff round. We should get a team from a diddy league like Andorra first, a team from a middling league like the Swiss league second, and if we make it by that a team from an elite league like the EPL in the playoffs.

In terms of expectations it's nice to be there and all that, but we should certainly be aiming to win that first tie. Like all Scottish teams, we are certainly capable of having a Connahs Quay Nomads/Birkirkara/Progress Niederkorn/Haf'jordur/Bohemians/Sligo Rovers/FC Vaduz etc moment and losing it, but we'd all be a bit gutted by that. The nightmare scenario is being bodied out by some Irish or Welsh team in that round and it not feeling like much more than one of these pre season tours we go on every year.

A good campaign would be winning that tie and then losing in the next round to a team like Luzern, no shame in that at all, that's the par performance. A great campaign would be getting past that team to the playoff round and losing to someone like Newcastle United. The dream is getting to the group stages, which would means knocking out a team from an elite league and having European football up till Christmas.

Credit cards would be maxed out all over Renfrewshire if that happened. We can but dream. 

Just do Scotland proud and win both your 2nd round ties.

And dont be a complete mess in the next round.

Thats all i ask

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Posted (edited)

The advantage I think both Saints and Killie have this year is that both our managers have been at the club for a couple of years, and have been there and done it in Europe. You often get a club with a new manager who is still building a squad, and/or someone who has no experience of managing in Europe, and it tends not to go well.

Edited by craigkillie
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7 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

Does being seeded in Q2 have any bearing on being at home in the 2nd leg or is that also down to chance ?

Down to chance. Whoever comes out the hat first is at home first - we will know the date of the home tie on the 19th June.

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4 hours ago, Lex said:

Down to chance. Whoever comes out the hat first is at home first - we will know the date of the home tie on the 19th June.

How does that work when it is seeded, the teams must be coming out of two separate "hats" so it's surely pre determined unless they draw a team from the seeded pot then a team from the unseeded pot and then they draw a third ball to see who is at home 1st ???

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Seeding doesn't affect if you're home or away first.

As far as I understand it, there's a mini draw beforehand where you'll get separated into a group of ten (five seeds and five non seeds), so with five possible opponents.

There's a draw to decide who is playing who (Team 1 v Team 6, etc) and those pairings apply to all of the mini groups of ten.

Home and away order for the ties comes from another draw.

Here's a bit of last year's procedure: https://kassiesa.net/uefa/news/template.html?20230621b

The 90 teams (59 that enter the competition at this stage and the 31 winners of the first
qualifying round ties) were divided into nine groups of 10 teams.

Within each of the nine groups, the teams were divided into an equal number of seeded and
unseeded teams (45 seeded teams and 45 unseeded teams in total).

Teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other.

If any club in a first qualifying round match had a coefficient that would entitle it to
be seeded for the second qualifying round draw, the winner of that match was automatically
seeded for the draw.

Draw procedure

All the clubs in each of the nine groups were randomly assigned a number: 1 to 5 for the
seeded teams and 6 to 10 for the unseeded teams.

Three bowls were prepared for the draw, with the balls containing the numbers for the
seeded and unseeded teams for Groups 1-5 placed in the correspondingly marked bowls.

One ball was taken from each of those bowls and placed in the third empty central bowl,
where they were shuffled. The number shown from first ball drawn from this bowl indicated
the home teams of the first pairing of all nine groups, and they were set to play against
the teams indicated by the number of the ball drawn second from this bowl.

For example, if the first ball drawn contained the number 2 and the second the number 8,
the clubs that have been assigned the numbers 2 and 8 in each of the nine groups would
play each other. The first ball drawn, here containing the number 2, designated the home
team for the first leg in all nine ties.

The same procedure was carried out with the remaining balls to complete the pairings.
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1 hour ago, Billy Jean King said:

How does that work when it is seeded, the teams must be coming out of two separate "hats" so it's surely pre determined unless they draw a team from the seeded pot then a team from the unseeded pot and then they draw a third ball to see who is at home 1st ???

I just assumed they took turns drawing teams first out of the hat.

As in tie one seeded team gets drawn first. Tie two non seeded team gets drawn first. Tie three seeded team gets drawn first etc etc.

Reading last post could be wrong, but I am sure seeding has no baring on whether we are home or away first. 

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Posted (edited)

Each tie has home and away drawn individually, which is more random than fixing it so that exactly half the seeded teams are at home first and half away first.

Edited by craigkillie
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It has been an amazing season for men's football in Renfrewshire. 

 

St Mirren will once again grace the European stage 

Johnstone Burgh gain promotion to the WOSFL Premier Division for the first time in 18 years

Renfrew FC retain WOSFL first division status

Glenvale win the WOSFL fourth division

Thorn Athletic clinch promotion from the WOSFL fourth division with a second place finish behind Glenvale

 

Renfrewshire is the place to be!  

 

 

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21 hours ago, TediousTom said:

It has been an amazing season for men's football in Renfrewshire. 

 

St Mirren will once again grace the European stage 

Johnstone Burgh gain promotion to the WOSFL Premier Division for the first time in 18 years

Renfrew FC retain WOSFL first division status

Glenvale win the WOSFL fourth division

Thorn Athletic clinch promotion from the WOSFL fourth division with a second place finish behind Glenvale

 

Renfrewshire is the place to be!  

 

 

You missed the greatest achievement of the lot. Greenock Morton celebrated their greatest pre season kickabout victory of all time. Open top bus through The Port, partying all night, the full bhoona.

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18 hours ago, Billy Jean King said:

You missed the greatest achievement of the lot. Greenock Morton celebrated their greatest pre season kickabout victory of all time. Open top bus through The Port, partying all night, the full bhoona.

Greenock is in Inverclyde. I was not referring to Inverclyde.   

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That's us definitely seeded now. List of possible opponents now down to the following, with ten more still to be added to the list as more qualify and/or have their seedings confirmed.

Teams with a * have still to play a 1st round fixture, so it'll either be them or the team who beats them in the 1st round who joins this list. Teams with &1 have a Europa League qualifier to play and it's the loser of that tie who will join this list.

image.png.4150b22b15463654fa07e828ccccc606.png

https://kassiesa.net/uefa/seedco2024.html

 

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9 hours ago, Dirty Sanchez said:

That's us definitely seeded now. List of possible opponents now down to the following, with ten more still to be added to the list as more qualify and/or have their seedings confirmed.

Teams with a * have still to play a 1st round fixture, so it'll either be them or the team who beats them in the 1st round who joins this list. Teams with &1 have a Europa League qualifier to play and it's the loser of that tie who will join this list.

image.png.4150b22b15463654fa07e828ccccc606.png

https://kassiesa.net/uefa/seedco2024.html

 

Hopefully we see as many Welsh and Irish teams eliminated in Rd 1 as possible. I want a proper European trip !

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