[Reynard]

HibeeJibee, on 26 August 2011 - 20:36, said:

But there'd clearly be benefits in them playing European games, as well as domestic football and internationals (for some), than not.

That's all I'm saying. I'm not talking about the ideal others are hoping for, where players move down south younger and so forth - I'm talking about the situation as it is this season, next season and so on, where these players are at Scottish clubs.

What clear benefits? Playing one or possibly two games in Europe is going to make precisely zero difference to a players development. Paul Lambert and a few others went abroad to play and came back better players technically. But they played more than a couple of games against those sort of players I'm fairly sure.



I know exactly what you are trying to say, but it's bollocks on this occasion. I wonder what the Dundee Utd kids gained from their two games in Europe this season. I'd hazard a guess at f**k all.

[HibeeJibee]

I wouldn't be so sure they learn't absolutely nothing, no... there were good performances in Poland (where they should have got a better result) and at home. And my point was being given as a reason for wanting our clubs to do well in Europe - clearly doing well means playing more than 1 tie , which Utd should've done (seeded/over the 2 legs they should've been the side advancing).

Motherwell's a recent example, Saunders and Murphy did well.

[lau03143]

I don't think its a big deal. A round earlier or whatever.

I'm more concerned with Rangers individual seeding as long as we're seeded we should theoretically be able to beat the teams we play.

These things happen, next year just have a go again.

[Patrick Bateman]

Fuck the coefficient.

Last night was too funny for words.

[blue4578]

Putting aside the general hated for Rangers and Celtic, what about when Hearts finished second in the league and had a shot at the Champions League qualifiers? Maybe even St Mirren could finish second some time soon, and if they did but Scotland are ranked 28th, all they'll get is a place in the early qualifying rounds of the Europa League, rather than the possibility of playing against the Barcelonas and AC Milans of this world by winning a couple of qualifying ties in the Champions League if Scotland were ranked 13th. If all you care about is domestic football then fair enough, but most people aspire to see their club go onto bigger and better things. If there is less money coming into the top clubs, less of it will filter down to the other clubs and the SPL will become even weaker than it already is.

For the record, I think that right now the best teams in the English Championship are better than Rangers and Celtic and the league itself is way better than the SPL generally.

topcat(The most tip top), on 26 August 2011 - 09:20, said:

The fact that you talk about the Europa league almost as an afterthought betrays your lack of concern for teams outside the dominant duopoly.

As for the perils of being unseeded it may have escaped your notice but Hearts were already playing the best possible opposition it's hard to see how a lower coefficient could have made things any harder than playing Spurs

The seeding is based more on the teams performances than the league Rangers and Celtic's runs to the UEFA cup final did to give other teams easy draws

If Rangers and Celtic continue to collapse in Europe then the other qualifiers will have more winnable European ties which will allow us to build up our own small but respectable coefficients.

Each Coefficient point gained by a Scottish Team contributes 1/4 to the average which forms Scotland's coefficients. 1/3 of Scotland's coefficient is then allocated to all the teams in Scotalnd's ranking. Thus every 12 points that Rangers get does as much for another scottish side's seeding chances as a point they gain themselves.

Rangers run to Manchester gained them 20 points so it was woth 1.66 to everybody else

The fact that Hearts went in a round early and were able to pick up a win and a draw in qualification means that we picked up another 1.66 points which effectively makes up for Rangers run disappearing from Scotland's coefficient . Dundee United's creditable win almost makes up for most of it

Even looking back at the Champions League a high national coefficient isn't actually that much use to teams who've broken in to the top positions at national level. Italy's ranking wasn't enough to get Udinese seeded. When Hearts briefly broke the duopoly and gatecrashed the champions League we were extraordinarily lucky to only get AEK who were the weakest of the seeded teams we'd been just as likely to get Arsenal.

Seeding the qualifiers creates Goldent Circles which like Craig brown's Scotland side are hard to play your way into and hard to play your way out of. Your best hope of making the step up is to meet somebody who are seeded used to be good but have been on the slide for some time and are now vulnerable. Sion and Maribor saw their chance and took it

You miss the point. Scotland will get three Europa League places come what may, and if teams are good enough they should be able to qualify. If Scottish teams are good enough to progress from the third and fourth qualifying rounds, they should be able to overcome the weaker teams in the earlier rounds. The difference with the Champions League is stark. If your country is ranked 3rd, you get three places in the group stages and a place in the final qualifying round. If your country is ranked 12th, you get a place in the group stages and a place in the third qualifying round. If your country is ranked 28th you get one place in the second qualifying round only. This was my point. The actual number of places countries receive is significantly different for the Champions League depending entirely on the country coefficient.

Even if I was mentioning the Europa League as an afterthought (which I wasn't), the difference in prestige and financial rewards compared to the Champions League is enormous. Teams playing in the Europa League often make little or no money from playing in it, compared to the many millions available to teams qualifying for the Champions League group stages. It was very much the poor relation and teams playing it in often don't even take the group stages seriously.

Lower country coefficients and team coefficients mean that the draws will get harder for the earlier rounds. The country coefficient forms the basis of the minimum team coefficient, which means that any club who hasn't played in Europe much in recent years or who hasn't done well when doing so is protected by the country coefficient. Hearts are ranked 177th with a team coefficient 7.528, but if they had been an English club they couldn't have been lower than 110th due to the higher country coefficient that England has. Stoke City for example haven't played in Europe for years, but have a team coefficient of 17.157 which is the minimum total for an English club. Scotland's minimum is 5.028. The lowest seeded team in the Europa League 4th qualifying round had a team coefficient of 15.850, so Hearts would've needed to be ranked higher than this to be sure of avoiding Tottenham. No English club could've been unseeded no matter their previous European record. Hearts just about managed to get seeded for the 3rd qualifying round, but continued poor results for Scottish clubs will see the country coefficient fall further as well as the coefficients of individual clubs. To answer your question: Therefore if Hearts for example had been unseeded in the 3rd qualifying round, they could've played Atletico Madrid or Fulham and thus would've almost certainly been knocked out one round earlier. Tottenham was a difficult draw for Hearts, but they'd probably have lost to almost all of the seeded teams in the 4th qualifying round anyway. If they'd got themselves seeded, they'd have had half a chance against most of the unseeded teams.

I know exactly what the seeding is based on, but the country coefficient does play a part if you come from a successful league and a club either hasn't played in Europe (Stoke City) or hasn't done well in Europe when they have played in the past five years.

The final point is that actually a high national coefficient was rather useful to Udinese. If they'd been Scottish and finished 4th in their domestic league, they'd have either missed European competition altogether (depending on who won the Scottish cup) or entered the Europa League 2nd qualifying round. Instead they had to win a tie over two legs to reach the group stages of the Champions League, with a place in the Europa League group stages assured if they lost. Which do you think they'd have preferred? Obviously when you're getting to the final qualifying stages of the Champions League and beyond, the individual team coefficients are far more important than the country coefficients when it comes to seeding the draws, but it is the country coefficients (in the case of the fourth placed team in Italy) that puts you straight into the final qualifying round for the Champions League, rather than the 2nd qualifying round for the Europa League.

Udinese obviously drew Arsenal, and since the non-champions and champions have been split in the final qualifying round the past couple of years, unseeded non-champions are likely to get a very difficult draw. The alternatives for Udinese were Bayern Munich, Lyon, Benfica and Villarreal. The consolation prize is a place in the Europa League group stages, with a chance for Udinese to improve their ranking by doing well there so that in future years the draws might be more favourable. The point allocated to teams being successful in the Europa League, previously the UEFA Cup, are far too high in my opinion. For example in the 2008/09 season, Shakhtar Donetsk won the UEFA Cup and gained more coefficient points than any team in the Champions League, including the winners Barcelona and runners up Manchester United. Therefore Udinese could dramatically improve their ranking by beating much inferior teams. So in terms of that, they're probably better off in the Europa League as a means of getting seeded if they have to play in the Champions League qualifying rounds in future seasons.


Anyway, I think I've digressed slightly there.

[Galajambo]

phanni tikklar, on 25 August 2011 - 21:56, said:

No. Everybody in Europe has to keep track of it themselves, with a pencil and a bit of paper. It's all very confusing. Unless you've been keeping note of all the results for the last five years you're fucked!!!

[Aurora Borealis]

[topcat(The most tip top)]

WeeHectorPar, on 26 August 2011 - 18:54, said:

Pity that you forgot that by your own reckoning this also has to be split amongst 12 clubs. There is no way that 1.66 points can make up for the loss of 20 points.

Maybe I didn't explain clearly enough

When I wrote
" 1/3 of Scotland's coefficient is then allocated to all the teams in Scotaland's ranking"

I should probably have said something along the lines of

Each Teams coefficient is made up of 1/3 of the National coefficient plus the points they've gained themselves

However I was doing that from memory

I've just checked and it's actually 20% (I think they changed the system at some point) This means that 1 point earned by your own club is worth 21 points gained by rangers

So as Scotland's coefficient is 19.516 any Scottish Club that qualifies for European competition will have a coefficient of 3.903 even if they're never played in Europe before 2.05 of that comes form season 2008/08

The relatively modest European Exploits of Hearts in 2009/10 and this season give us another 3 points so we're on 6.903

Looking at 2007/08

The Coefficient points gained by Scottish teams were
Rangers: 23.5
Celtic: 11
Aberdeen: 6
Dunfermline Athletic: 0.5
Total: 41
This gives Scotland a coefficient for that year of 10.25

This in turn contributes 1/5 of that to all Scottish teams coefficients 2.05

If Rangers had failed completely that year then the sums would have worked out like this

Rangers: 0
Celtic: 11
Aberdeen: 6
Dunfermline Athletic: 0.5
Total: 17.5 (down 23.5)
Average: 4.375 (down 5.875)
Average/5: 0.875 (down 1.175)

So Rangers entire run contributed just over a point to everybody else.

This post has been edited by topcat(The most tip top): 27 August 2011 - 20:15

[EdTheDuck]

With Cyprus already ahead of us, we are now dependant on celtic holding off that other giant of european football, Israel, who moved to within 0.141 points of Scotland in the UEFA rankngs.
Israel have 3 teams still in the EL btw

[HibeeJibee]

Israel are a nation pretty similar to us, tbh. The national team has fared similarly in recent times (often finishing 3rd or occasionally 2nd and losing the play-off) - and they have a fair smattering of good teams like Hapoel Tel-Aviv, Maccabi Tel-Aviv, Maccabi Haifa, Beitar Jerusalem.

[pollymac]

Another point tonight; one dropped as well though IMO (although one might argue that the point gained is something of a bonus).

[EdTheDuck]

pollymac, on 29 September 2011 - 22:28, said:

Another point tonight; one dropped as well though IMO (although one might argue that the point gained is something of a bonus).

Ha! Those pesky 3 Israeli teams could only match 1 Irish/Scottish (delete as per your conscience dictates) team!

[greenockraver]

Digging you lot out a hole.

[scoot88]

cheesy, on 25 August 2011 - 21:40, said:

Sooner or later, we'll be in with the Andorra's and the Liechenstein's of world football. Depressing reading as a fan of Scottish football.

Here Here!!! Scottish football is in a rapid decline, after next season a scottish club in CL will be a distant memory and EL will be lucky. The like of the youth prospects at the likes of Celtic, Tax dodgers, hearts and hibs wont show anything for another 5 years or so if at all. We are fucked!!!!!!! !!!!!!

[HibeeJibee]

scoot88, on 30 September 2011 - 13:15, said:

Here Here!!! Scottish football is in a rapid decline, We are fucked!!!!!!! !!!!!!

It's not in rapid decline at all; and it will never... let alone "sooner or later"... come anywhere near the likes of Andorra or Liechtenstein. What fall we may see, will be a fall from over-achievement to a position alongside some similar nations (but still above many others).

scoot88, on 30 September 2011 - 13:15, said:

after next season a scottish club in CL will be a distant memory and EL will be lucky.

If OF continue to lose to opponents with lesser resources and inferior squads? Most certainly.

[EdTheDuck]

Oooooh Israel elbow us aside and we fall into 18th place

[HibeeJibee]

No difference being 17th v 18th, though, I'd note.

[EdTheDuck]

I really don’t give a monkey’s about the coefficient to be honest HJ, but I’m sure there are them as does and they’ll see Israel displacing us as further proof of The Death Of Scottish Football™.

It’s quite entertaining watching the apoplexy based on past glories (achieved when three quarters of western European football was part-time at best and in many cases amateur) and then making the mental leap to us somehow deteriorating to the level of micro-states.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

Celtic's reinstatement and subsequent picking up of 5 coefficiant points took Scotland from a coefficient of 1.5 for the season to 2.75

So instead of being level with Bulgaria, Finland and the Republic of Ireland(plus (London)derry we were ranked just in between Georgia and Slovakia

In terms of the team ranking(based on the last 5 years) we're provisionally ranked 18th but three countries have teams in the knockout stages

The difference between being ranked 18th and 19th is that the 2nd place team goes into the 2nd qualifying round along with the 3rd place team as opposed to the 3rd round with the cup winner.



Czech Republic (1.041 behind): Viktoria Plzen (vs Schalke)
Schalke will be strong favourites so it would appear that the UEFA decision has kept us ahead of the Czechs who would need to see Plzen go through and then do something in the next round as well.

Poland (1.975 behind): Wisla Kraków (vs Standard Liege) or Legia Warsaw (vs Sporting Lisbon)
Poland's two teams will have to pick up 9 points instead of 3 to catch us. It's 2 for a win and 1 for a draw so realistically they'd need a quarter finalist to go above Scotland

Romania (2.317): Steaua Bucharest (vs FC Twente Enschede)
Romania had 6 teams in the competition so Steaua contribute less to their average. They'd need 14 as opposed to the 7 they would have if Sions appeal had been upheld. Against Dutch opposition they'll be doing well to get 1

[deky]

Shove your coefficeint up your arse.

[Borys]

'Mon the coefficient!

[LongTimeLurker]

EdTheDuck, on 26 October 2011 - 14:53, said:

It's quite entertaining watching the apoplexy based on past glories (achieved when three quarters of western European football was part-time at best and in many cases amateur) and then making the mental leap to us somehow deteriorating to the level of micro-states.

The first part of your argument doesn't fit the mid to late-80s very well and we have already been overtaken by one country, Cyprus, that could arguably be described as a microstate.

http://kassiesa.home.../crank2012.html

http://en.wikipedia....pean_microstate

All of the arguments that get trotted out on here to defend the status quo way of doing things and to pretend everything is basically OK revolve around the idea that the Old Firm's appeal to the armchair fan will be a constant over time so the other SPL clubs can continue to rely on the TV deal and sponsorship money that attracts regardless of the monotonous second rate two horse race nature of the entertainment product that is on offer. A generation is currently growing up with easy access to games in leagues like the Premiership and La Liga, who are not a captive audience for the Scottish game in the same sort of way people who grew up in the 70s and 80s were...

[EdTheDuck]

LongTimeLurker, on 20 January 2012 - 13:25, said:

The first part of your argument doesn't fit the mid to late-80s very well and we have already been overtaken by one country, Cyprus, that could arguably be described as a microstate.

http://kassiesa.home.../crank2012. html

http://en.wikipedia....pean_microstate

All of the arguments that get trotted out on here to defend the status quo way of doing things and to pretend everything is basically OK revolve around the idea that the Old Firm's appeal to the armchair fan will be a constant over time so the other SPL clubs can continue to rely on the TV deal and sponsorship money that attracts regardless of the monotonous second rate two horse race nature of the entertainment product that is on offer. A generation is currently growing up with easy access to games in leagues like the Premiership and La Liga, who are not a captive audience for the Scottish game in the same sort of way people who grew up in the 70s and 80s were...

I'd argue my point fits perfectlywell TBH; in the 50s, 60s and early 70s everyone and their dog did well inEurope with Kilmarnock, Dundee and Dunfermline all reaching semi finals as wellas the OF reaching 5 finals and semi finals on a fairly regular basis. Almostevery Scottish team that played in Europe could be counted on to make someprogress.

The 80s were entirely differentand were down to 2 clubs and more specifically 2 men, Ferguson and MacLean;while Aberdeen and United were doing remarkably well everyone else was beingshafted fairly regularly, including the OF. Maybe occasionally you'd findsomeone bucking the trend, but it was occasionally. The brief renaissance inthe 2000s was entirely down to the OF spending money they didn't have.

Re defending the status quo, notguilty. Have stated with monotonous regularity that I think the whole thingneeds a complete overhaul although having said that there's no way Scotland isever going to get back to top 5 in the coefficient again. IMO a good standingfor Scotland would be low to mid teens, a poor standing would be mid to high20s and we're likely going to see both over the next few years.

As for Cypriot clubs being aheadof us, have a look at their player squads, it is being bought and paid for byrich benefactors and they're also ahead of the Czechs, Poles, Croatians,Romanians etc. and sooner or later they'll slide back to a more realisticstanding.

[djw1992]

Supras, on 26 August 2011 - 11:08, said:

Yeah, well, I'm not trying to convince you to care. You can not care if you want.

But I would agree for all Scottish football is supposedly 'dying' I am incredibly happy with St. Mirren at the moment, we are the best we have ever been in 20 years. Very good time to be a Saints fan at the moment.

I care Greg!!!

[Monkey]

topcat(The most tip top), on 25 August 2011 - 20:59, said:

Scotland's clubs finished with 5 UEFA Coefficent points between them

Hearts: Pld 4, W 1, D 2, L 1, Pts 2
Dundee United: Pld 2, W 1, D 0, L 1, Pts 1
Rangers: Pld 4, W 0, D 2, L 2, Pts 1
Celtic: Pld 2, W 0, D 1, L 1, Pts 0.5

Total: Pld 12, W 2, D 5, L 5, Pts 4.5

meaning that we average 1.125 for this season.

When this replace the 10.25 for 2007/08 our coefficient will drop by 9.125 to 10.141 which would put us just above Hungary. It basically means that we'll all enter one round earlier in 2012/13

It's worth noting that the old firm averaged 1 Point while the "diddy teams" averaged 1.5 so Scotland's average was dragged down by the "Glasgow Giants"

I would have thought you lot and your west coast cousins would be more concerned about your credit rating than the fkn coefficient.