The Eircom League Takes on Europe

Roar

A big, big week for our three representatives (City, Shels, De Towen)...

On paper it appears city may have the trickier task, away to FK Ekranas of Lithuania... A draw here me thinks, hoepfully a score draw, so we've an away goal to take back to Turner's Cross...

Shels Glentoran is going to be like a derby game, cant imagine the football will be too pretty, although I'm pretty confident Shels can get a result, probably 2-0.

And longford, well they should be able to get past carmarthen shouldnt they? 1-0 longford

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Longford should have beated Luxembourg opposition last year :rolleyes:

gimmick

It wasnt Luxembourg, it was Liechtenstein (i think) - FC Vaduz.

Camarten play in a poor league, and get regular attendences of 450. The LOW is as bad a league as is in Europe at present. Anything less than Longford progressing will be seen as total failure.

As I said in another thread, I reckon Shels should easily get past Glentoran. 2-0 in each tie!

City have it toughest. Erkranas are runaway leaders on the Lithuanian league, have 2-3 internationals, plus a few u21 internationals. They wont be easy, an they are in mid season also. City prove dlast year they can take on the best though, so Im hopeful they will get through.

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gimmick wrote:

It wasnt Luxembourg, it was Liechtenstein (i think) - FC Vaduz.

Indeed it was, I apologise

gimmick wrote:

City proved last year they can take on the best though

Where?

In the intertoto?

I'm not having a go, but I would hardly call teams competing in the Intertoto and Early Uefa Cup rounds the best.

edit : are you not heading to Lithuania?

gimmick

City beat Malmo, who went onto win the Swedish league, in both legs - 4-1 on aggregate.

NEC Nijmegen held their own in the Dutch Eerdivisie. We beat them 1-0 over 2 legs.

Nantes were lucky to get a 1-1 draw at Turners Cross last year. City were 1-0 for most of the game, and battered them for the majority, until they got a breakaway goal. Had we got a second, we were though!

Id hazard, all three of those teams are better than what City will face this week. However, it doesnt always work out that way.

---

Not going to Lithuaina. Had to pay the car insurance last monday, so thats the end of my spending for the month

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Still, I wouldn't call any of these teams "the best", but then, I'm a pedantic asshole

Let's see, car insurance or euro away trip?

No choice really!

thejollyrodger

shels should win over the two legs but i cant see it being a walk through. Glentorian are going to make it physical and ugly. a win and a draw would do me now although we have the better players to win both games.

eirebhoy

If Longford fail to progress to the next round they should be banned from Europe. If I remember correctly Vaduz had never won a game in Europe in something like 10 years and 17 matches. They beat Longford in Longford I think. The Welsh team they're playing on Thursday, Carmarthen, finished 6th in the Welsh league. They qualified as runners up in the cup to the league winners TNS. The Welsh league finished 2 months ago so Longford really should win both legs.

Big Ears

If Longford don't progress then the LOI shouldn't let them play in Europe for a while even if they do meet the qualification standards .

I would have all three sides favourite to go through but most likely at least one will slipp up .

Slash/ED

Yeah if Longford screw this up they have some serious explaining to do. Dream draw for them.

Cork will find it tough but they're flying atm. O'Flynn is, after two years, back to his best and at his best is better than Doyle ever was. With players like him and O'Callaghan playing at their best you have to think they're capable of getting a goal out there. A draw or even a narrow high scoring defeat and then finish the job in the home leg would be ideal, winning away would obviously be dreamland.

As for Shels, I'm worried as Hawkins is a doubt. If he's out we WILL concede at least once. We really really need him back. I'd like to see Moore and Hoolahan out wide, probably Hoolahan who moves to the right, as Moore turns it on when he wants to and this is a big occasion. We're favourites but it wont be easy, Fenlons talk of a scrap worried me greatly. For me this implies he'll drop the likes of Ndo for people like Crawford and go physical. That makes no sense at all, play the way we should play and we should beat them, lower ourselves into a scrap and they'll beat us, no question.

Töpher

Best of luck to all teams involved, we need all teams to do well to progress as a league.

Agree with the Longford sentiments, if they feck it up in Europe and win the FAI cup, give it to 3rd in the league!!

Heading to Belfast myself, and dying for it! Should be a cracker! One thing that worries me, particularly in a physical game which this probably will be, will be the temperment of our players. And manager. We need 11 on the pitch, and defo need Nutsy on the sidelines!! Tbh I'd settle for a score draw, but I'm hoping for 6 wins from 6 matches lads! Lets boost that co-efficient!

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You're right about discipline alright, especially players like Moore, Baker and Jason Byrne, and of course the manager.

In 24 hours from now the first leg will be over, hopefully we'll ba happy on the bus on the way back.

Apparently there are just shy of 400 travelling up, not a huge amount by any stretch, but considering the crowd at recent Dublin derbies (I'm talking about Shels fans here, so all other supporters of Dublin clubs Calm Down) then it is a big enough crowd.

Töpher

416 last I saw.

Kingp35

Yeah I just wanna say good luck to all the Irish teams this week. We need them all to do well to boost the irish league and to start progressing it.

As said Longford must go through or its an absolute travesty. they have got the easiest draw they could have hoped for and they surely must go through.

Shels I think should go through but I dont think it will be as easy as some people are making out. Shels havent had a great season so far and Glentoran certainly are not complete pushovers but i really do expect Shels to go through over the two legs.

Cork have it tough I think. the Lithuanian side are quite good and do posses some established players in their side. i really cant call this one but Cork definitely have a good chance.

So good luck to the Irish teams the three of them certainly have the ability to go through

Jivin Turkey

Good luck to all the EL teams, but I particularly worry for Shelbourne. A lot of people are predicting that they will win up north yet only a couple of weeks ago they were beaten comfortably at home by a northern side. Its not like they have totally turned their fortunes around since then.

A score draw would be a great result.

eirebhoy

The Lithuanians are either given Cork too much benefit because of last years results in Europe or Ekranas aren't as good as I first thought. Here's a post from a Lithuanian on the away leg only:

I really think that Cork City is little better team with good players and they showed good football in Ireland. As i remember Ekranas always have big problems in UEFA cup games. For me favorite is COrk city and me loocal bookies offered huge odds on Cork @5.20 and i will take it with medium stakes.

http://forum.bettingadvice.com//viewtopic.php?t=33875

BTW - Glentoran's ground is mostly terraces so the capacity for this match is cut down to 3,500 (from 12,000).

gimmick

0-1 City. Roy O Donovan

Mick Devine taken off to be replaced by Phil Harrington :eek:

EDIT: Good news for the rest of the league - Mick Devine dislocated his shoulder, leaving us effectively 'keeper less. McNulty the regular no 2 is injured also, and Harrington is suppoosedly retired.

Thank god for the transfer window.

Slash/ED

Excellent stuff, City need to keep pushing and try and get more goals, they have the players to do it, even if it means concedeing. They're more than capable of turning a draw or narrow high scoring defeat into a win in Turners Cross. Obviously a win would be even better.

Slash/ED

half time and still one nil to Cork.

Big Ears

Well thatas good news so far , besides the keeper thing . Having the 3 teams all go through the first round of qualifying in Europe would show that the league is going in the right direction .

As it stands Eircom League 2-0 Europe . 6 mins left in Cork game by the way .

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Great Result.

Clean Sheet, two away goals.

Fair play Cork City, excellent.

eirebhoy

Finished 2-0 with O'Callaghan scoring the 2nd.

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Spunded like a cracker "blockbuster of a shot into the top of the goal" according to 96fm.

Slash/ED

Unless Longford blow it, looks like all three teams should progress.

Big Ears

Great result , but I just have the feelin Longford could mess it all up .
Anyway 0.666 not a bad start for the Eircom League .

gimmick

Looking good, but another leg to be played yet!

KdjaCL

Excellent result

plyd.


kdjac

Slash/ED

0-0 after ten minutes in Longford.

eirebhoy

Longford are 1-0 up, Paisley.

Slash/ED

2-0, and it's another defender, Fergusson.

Slash/ED

FT 2-0

3 sides out of 3 with one foot in the next round, and 3 wins out of 3 attemps so far, the maximum 1 co-efficent point earned.

A repeat next week and we're looking good. Cork and Shels at home should pick up another 2 wins at least and Longford should progress, any co-efficent points they gain will be a bonus.

Big Ears

This is very good , id like to see Redspiders comments on summer football now because without it I don't think we would have gotten the three results .

Im delighted all three won , cheers me up from losing a Minor A football semi .

gimmick

Pats on the back all round, and hurrah for a co-efficient point, however, lets not get ahead of ourselves here. All 3 are in very good positions to progress, but none have actually progressed yet, though all 3 should.

Its the next round where things will start getting interesting. Shesl will have Steuea, which will not be easy. Im hoping City draw Dundee Utd should we progress, as I feel we can beat scottish opposition, especially as they will not be properly match fit again.

Töpher

I would have thought Tromso might also be do-able for Cork, but Dundee would be a good one indeed! Fair play to all involved, truly magnificent!!

eirebhoy

Einst&#252 wrote: »

I would have thought Tromso might also be do-able for Cork, but Dundee would be a good one indeed!

Dundee got relegated to division 1 last season.

BTW, look at Ireland:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/ccoef2006.html

Draupnir

Good spot Eirebhoy, as a united fan, i can honestly say, calling United Dundee is a mistake punishable by death!!

The sad thing about us, is that we are ****e most of the time and an end of season rally last year saved our arses.

Be a good game though and I would be making the trip for sure

Ronan|Raven

Good night up in flanare, Could have been 3 or 4-0 but some good defending and goal keeping kept the score to 2-0. Hopefuly DA TOWN can get a good result away in two weeks time. The ref was porr imho. Didnt punish many over the top challeges for blatent elbows.

Guy:Incognito

eirebhoy wrote:

BTW, look at Ireland:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/ccoef2006.html

Theres a 111 point gap between Liverpool and the next team in the 1st Qual round

How Exactly do Everton have 20 coefficient points?

Slash/ED

Stekelly wrote:

Theres a 111 point gap between Liverpool and the next team in the 1st Qual round

How Exactly do Everton have 20 coefficient points?

Club co-efficent is a combination of the co-efficent of the country the team comes from and the clubs own co-efficent. So in Evertons case it's Englands score plus none, as they've not been in Europe over the past five years.

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This is absolutely brilliant for the eL as a whole.

Well done to all involved.

Roar

well done to all three teams, magic stuff, hoping for a repeat in a fortnight. only bad news for us is that our keeper mick devine broke his collarbone, or so they say.. any shels lads have a number for steve williams, i hear he's not up to much these days

Kingp35

Yeah great results for all three irish teams and a great week for the eircom league.

Lets hope it continues and all three can progress