The Hallowed Turf of Brexit Central - Europa League 2018/19

[Satchmo Distel]

Rangers possibly getting farther than Celtic would suggest the luck of the draw is a big factor in this competition. OTOH Celtic blew it by not making the Champions League groups.

Still early days, though. Honeymoon period for Stevie G before reality bites.

[Satchmo Distel]

Current Europea League table positions of domestic champions after today's games:

Ludogorets 3rd
Salzburg 1st
Celtic 3rd
Rosenborg 4th
Dinamo Zagreb 1st
Spartak Trnava 3rd
Qarabag 4th
Dudelange 4th
Astana 1st
BATE Borisov 4th
MOL Vidi 3rd
Malmo 2nd

Rounds at which they entered the Champions League:

1st qualifying: Dudelange, Rosenborg, Malmo, Astana, Qarabag, Malmo, Celtic, Trnava, Vidi
2nd qualifying: Zagreb, Borisov
3rd qualifying: Salzburg

[Kevin S]

Seven teams have qualified for the last 32 - Leverkusen, FC Zurich, Dinamo Zagreb, Arsenal, Eintracht Frankfurt, Lazio and Chelsea.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Poor Danny Welbeck, he's even unluckier than Wes Brown, and I didn't think that was possible.

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/simonpeach/status/1067506211187294208?s=21

[Sporting]

Man Utd are currently trying their best to win this competition.

[Sporting]

I jinxed them.

[Wouter D]

Frankfurt are positively butchering Marseille tonight.

[Gerontophile]

Chelsea pissing over PAOK, who are down to 10, and down 3-0.

Rangers also down to 10 men, and holding on a little against Villarreal. Candeias sent off, a little unluckily, even though he is a twat.

[ursus arctos]

Sevilla are losing in Liege, where Standard are inexplicably wearing all black with neon yellow highlights, including a colourised badge. It is unclear whether the many empty seats are related to this lamentable kit choice.

[ursus arctos]

Standard win and are now even with points with Sevilla behind Krasnodar, who Sevilla play on the last day. Notwithstanding their history in the competition, they may not feel heartbroken at going out, given their position in la Liga.

This was amazing

https://twitter.com/hothandgambling/status/1068262632057200640?s=21

[Satchmo Distel]

Rangers seem to have collapsed

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

That's glorious Ursus. There's a video like that doing the rounds on facebook of some non-league game that's about 60 seconds long that features three incidents like that one, swinging from end to end twice, with two goals. I don't know if it's on twitter, but if anyone can find a link to it, it's beautiful

[Ray de Galles]

That was Widnes’ football team versus someone wasn’t it (or possibly Warrington’s)?

It was quite a while ago now and was covered on here at the time, though it’s certainly doing the rounds on social media anew for some reason.

[Satchmo Distel]

Current Europea League table positions of domestic champions after yesterday's games:

Ludogorets 4th (out)
Salzburg 1st (through)
Celtic 2nd (need a win or draw)
Rosenborg 4th (out, nil points)
Dinamo Zagreb 1st (through)
Spartak Trnava 3rd (out)
Qarabag 4th (out)
Dudelange 4th (out, nil points)
Astana 2nd (need a win or draw)
BATE Borisov 2nd (will be through if they equal Vidi's result (due to BATE's head-to-head advantage))
MOL Vidi 3rd (will be through if they pick up more points than BATE)
Malmo 3rd (must win)

Rounds at which they entered the Champions League:

1st qualifying: Dudelange, Rosenborg, Malmo, Astana, Qarabag, Malmo, Celtic, Trnava, Vidi
2nd qualifying: Zagreb, Borisov
3rd qualifying: Salzburg

Only other club on nil points is Akhisar, the Turkish cup winners, who have never finished higher than 7th in Turkey.

Has any other club ever made a the UEFA, CWC or Europa without ever finishing top 6 in its domestic league (excluding the clubs who play in another league like Wrexham)?

[Capybara]

Only other club on nil points is Akhisar, the Turkish cup winners, who have never finished higher than 7th in Turkey.

Has any other club ever made a the UEFA, CWC or Europa without ever finishing top 6 in its domestic league (excluding the clubs who play in another league like Wrexham)?

I guess we need to be looking at 'surprise' winners of cup competitions. Wigan Athletic is one.

[Southport Zeb]

Guingamp best ever finish is 7th and they have qualified for Europe three times - two cup wins to qualify for the Europa League, and a 10th place finish, which qualified them for the Intertoto Cup which they won through to reach the UEFA Cup.

[ursus arctos]

Castilla made the 1980-81 CWC without ever having played in the Spanish top flight (as Real Madrid’s second team, they are barred from playing in the same division as the Merengues).

That same competition featured Newport County as Welsh Cup winners. Newport made the quarterfinals despite never having played in the top flight before or since.

[3 Colours Red]

(excluding the clubs who play in another league like Wrexham)?

That same competition featured Newport County as Welsh Cup winners. Newport made the quarterfinals despite never having played in the top flight before or since.

I suppose Newport was technically in England when the club was first formed...

[Ray de Galles]

Has UEFA’s new European Checkatrade Trophy been discussed.

[seand]

As it stands the massively bloated Europa League is extremely important to clubs in the smaller leagues. It looks like all those clubs from countries like Scotland, Sweden, Ireland, Croatia etc, etc will be bumped out of the EL altogether into a secondary EL2 to give Everton, Villarreal and Roma a handier time in the EL. If- and it's a big if- the EL2 is financed to the same degree as the current EL then it won't massively negatively impact the smaller countries- indeed it'll give them something solid to play for. If it's not as well financed it's going to be disaster for the smaller leagues, especially when it looks like perennial champions (like BATE, Dinamo Zagreb, TNS, Celtic, Lincoln RI, HJK Helsinki, Dundalk) are going to be provided with more protection, fall-backs and consequently money than ever before

[ad hoc]

How are the rankings going to work? If the Europa League 1 is for countries 1-15 then presumably teams from country 14, say, might struggle to get many points. Likewise teams from country 16 will presumably be hoping to do well in EL2,and hence dramatically increase their country's ranking. There sounds like there will be a lot of yoyoing

[Duncan Gardner]

Castilla made the 1980-81 CWC without ever having played in the Spanish top flight (as Real Madrid’s second team, they are barred from playing in the same division as the Merengues).

That same competition featured Newport County as Welsh Cup winners. Newport made the quarterfinals despite never having played in the top flight before or since

Newport's run included thrashing Crusaders 4-0.

Never watched Castilla live, though I once played 5 a side on their pitch

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Some teams are potentially going to play in all 3 competitions in a season. If they drop out of the CL qualifiers but get into the EL groups, the article suggests 3rd placed teams in the EL groups will parachute again into the knockout rounds in the EL2.

[Wouter D]

How are the rankings going to work? If the Europa League 1 is for countries 1-15 then presumably teams from country 14, say, might struggle to get many points. Likewise teams from country 16 will presumably be hoping to do well in EL2,and hence dramatically increase their country's ranking. There sounds like there will be a lot of yoyoing

That's not really different from how the team allocation to the various competitions works right now. More teams = those few successful ones have their rating points divided by a greater number = fewer teams in the future = more rating points = more teams in the future etcetera.