Gibraltarwatch

[HibeeJibee]

Bump... Lincoln FC won the Gibraltar Premier with 1 game to spare on Monday - to become the territory's first-ever participants in the Champions League.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013%E2%80%9314_Gibraltar_Premier_Division#League_table

Their sole Europa League slot will go to the Rock Cup winners - or, if Lincoln complete the treble, the runners-up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Rock_Cup#Semi-finals

Last night their Under-19s played their first-ever home match, holding Hungary to a creditable 2-2 draw.

[forameus]

Bump... Lincoln FC won the Gibraltar Premier with 1 game to spare on Monday - to become the territory's first-ever participants in the Champions League.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013%E2%80%9314_Gibraltar_Premier_Division#League_table

Their sole Europa League slot will go to the Rock Cup winners - or, if Lincoln complete the treble, the runners-up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Rock_Cup#Semi-finals

Last night their Under-19s played their first-ever home match, holding Hungary to a creditable 2-2 draw.

Good old Lincoln. They'll have the honour of being the team that gets pumped by a truly diddy side in the first qualifying round of the Champions League in July

[forameus]

Or alternatively running Celtic very very close.

Boom! Unfortunately, they'll join one round earlier. To put it in perspective, the teams contesting that round this season were Shirak of Armenia, Tre Penne of San Marino, Lusitanos of Andorra and EB/Streymur of the Faroe Islands. Mighty.

[HibeeJibee]

As things stand they'll play unseeded v one of: TNS, Levadia Tallinn, and 2 from Torshavn and the winners of the Northern Irish, Andorran, and Armenian leagues.

http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/seedcl2014.html

In most cases you'd expect them to lose but say Torshavn and the Andorran champions can't be that superior.

If the CL title holder slot isn't used TNS and the Northern Irish winner go QR2; then they'd face Levadia, Torshavn, or San Marino, Andorra or Armenia's champion.

Edited April 17, 2014 by HibeeJibee

[Zetterlund]

The name Liam Walker rings a bell. I have a feeling when Utd were playing a couple of friendlies in the South of Spain he rocked up wanting a game for us. Actually, quick look at wiki -

It was reported that Walker turned up at a training base of Dundee United in Spain without notice and requested a possible trial. This was however refused by Dundee United's management

Utd knock back international midfielder shocker.

[forameus]

As things stand they'll play unseeded v one of: TNS, Levadia Tallinn, and 2 from Torshavn and the winners of the Northern Irish, Andorran, and Armenian leagues.

http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/seedcl2014.html

In most cases you'd expect them to lose but say Torshavn and the Andorran champions can't be that superior.

If the CL title holder slot isn't used TNS and the Northern Irish winner go QR2; then they'd face Levadia, Torshavn, or San Marino, Andorra or Armenia's champion.

Cheers HJ - interesting. It is possible they'd get through that first round, as they'd be up against other amateur, and possibly semi-pro sides. But then you'd worry who they'd draw in the next round - they could get a relative giant, and are very likely to get a professional club. Would like to see them get that far though.

[SodjesSixteenIncher]

Hope to f**k Michael Nelson is never allowed to play football in this stadium.

Can see c***s beng reassigned from the Indian Ocean to retrieve miles of aeroplane debris.

[Ivo den Bieman]

As things stand they'll play unseeded v one of: TNS, Levadia Tallinn, and 2 from Torshavn and the winners of the Northern Irish, Andorran, and Armenian leagues.

http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/seedcl2014.html

In most cases you'd expect them to lose but say Torshavn and the Andorran champions can't be that superior.

If the CL title holder slot isn't used TNS and the Northern Irish winner go QR2; then they'd face Levadia, Torshavn, or San Marino, Andorra or Armenia's champion.

I'd expect the Lincoln pubteam to be absolutely vaporised by every potential opponent, with the *possible* exception of the Andorran / San Marino team. HB Torshavn are light years ahead of them, even if they are not very good against anyone else.

bit of a joke, really. Might as well invite Milngavie Wanderers to take part in the Champions League.

Edited April 18, 2014 by Ivo den Bieman

[Burnie_man]

Match 1:

Gibraltar 0-0 Slovakia

Friendly

(at Faro, Portugal)

History made tonight as over 7,000 watched Gibraltar

What was the source of this report HJ? I understod that there were only around 400 at the game, most of whom travelled from Gib.

[HibeeJibee]

From memory it was a typo from some journalist at the time who tweeted 7000 instead of 700. Clearly ridiculous to imagine high thousands.

I was sure I'd corrected the post, maybe it got wiped-out by technical trouble.

Lincoln and College have reached the Rock Cup Final, so College will play in the EL next season.

Gibraltar have arranged an additional friendly v Malta next month, returning to Faro.

Alongwith Artell, Wiseman, Walker and Priestley, two new UK-based players have been called-up... Louie Barnfather, a keeper from Evesham United and Jake Gosling, a winger from Exeter City. Anthony Hernandez the Cadiz striker also returns to the squad to face Estonia & Malta.

GFA receiving 4 million Euros from UEFA for Euro 2016 qualifying TV rights, says the Gibraltar Chronicle.

Edited May 7, 2014 by HibeeJibee

[Ivo den Bieman]

so they are a desperately poor side scrambling about League Two and non league to recruit ageing players who once spent a weekend on Gibraltar.

[Thumper]

so they are a desperately poor side scrambling about League Two and non league to recruit ageing players who once spent a weekend on Gibraltar.

So are two thirds of CONCACAF. It puzzles me why people are so desperate to deride the efforts of this one particular national team. They're never going to qualify for a major finals, but there's no obvious reason for the malice directed at them daring to even compete.

[Ivo den Bieman]

well, its not really a denigration - it's fact.

I suppose I am a bit puzzled as to why Gibraltar were admitted. Now they are in, of course, good luck to them.

[HibeeJibee]

I don't understand why anyone could be puzzled as to why they were admitted. If you want to apply a sovereign state test they should never have admitted the Faroe Islands, and the Home Nations would be in a bit of a pickle... if you want to apply a quality test you would have to strike out quite a number of weak or small competitors, not just Gibraltar, and where would you draw the line.

Worth adding Gosling qualifies through his father.

They've clearly a very limited population base, and have had to go from almost zero involvement in representative football to European Championships qualifiers in less than 1 year, so I don't think we can begrudge them using the parent and grandparents rules. Heck, we do. And you can't really call them ageing as the ages of the overseas players utilised so far are 21, 33 (Artell), 28, 26, 20, 23, 19, 19, 35 (Higginbotham - retired), 25.

Edited May 7, 2014 by HibeeJibee

[HibeeJibee]

92nd-minute goal won the Rock Cup for Lincoln yesterday, complete the treble. Platini attended.

Season summary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013%E2%80%9314_Gibraltar_Premier_Division

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Rock_Cup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013%E2%80%9314_League_Cup_(Gibraltar)

EDIT: Lincoln also won the "Pepe Reyes Cup" - Gibraltan Supercup - at the start of the season, making a clean sweep of domestic honours.

Infact they didn't lose a single one of their 24 competitive matches, securing 19 wins and 5 draws, form they'll hope to carry into CL.

Edited May 11, 2014 by HibeeJibee

[bullywee]

A great day for football.

[Latino Lover]

Plucky 1-1 draw at Estonia today.

[HibeeJibee]

Very good result, comeback from 1-0 down, Gosling the Exeter striker. Promising improvement on March's 2-0 home defeat.

Some highlights:

In Saturday's playoff St Joseph retained Gibraltar Premier status, beating Mons Calpe 2-0.

Edited May 26, 2014 by HibeeJibee

[lionel hutz]

Very good result, comeback from 1-0 down, Gosling the Exeter striker. Promising improvement on March's 2-0 home defeat.

Some highlights:

In Saturday's playoff St Joseph retained Gibraltar Premier status, beating Mons Calpe 2-0.

Well Done to them. Two draws against teams of a similar level to Scotland. We should be sh****g ourselves. As for Lincoln, they could spend some money and get to Q2 where they'll play Celtic.

And Win. LOL.

[Ivo den Bieman]

embarrassing result for Estonia- horrendous.