What is the answer?

[tarapoa]

On 12/08/2022 at 09:40, jamamafegan said:

AZ Alkmaar 7 Dundee United 0

St Johnstone knocked out by Minsk, Trnava, Alashkert and Trakai.

Aberdeen knocked out by Sigma Olomouc, Kairat, Apollon Limassol and Qarabag to name a few.

Motherwell knocked out by Sligo. Knocked out by Stjarnan in 2014.

Kilmarnock knocked out by Connah’s Quay Nomads

Hibernian 0 Malmo 7

Hearts 1 Birkirkara 2 - knocked out.

Inverness knocked out by Astra.

There’s a few of the many miserable results endured by Scottish clubs in European competition over the past decade or so. It’s grim reading.

Hang on a minute - this is a tad selective from the OP where the Dons are concerned.

Sigma was brutal, but it happened in 2009 during the disastrous McGhee era - and they were a decent enough Czech side. This was only a year and a half after we reached the UEFA Cup last 32 (overcoming Dnipro, Lokomotiv Moscow and FC Copenhagen to do so).

If we're talking about the last decade, ties won are as follows....

Aberdeen 13

Hibs 3

St Johnstone 2

Motherwell 2

Hearts 1

 

Aberdeen never went out before they were seeded to do so, and even though some of the earlier opponents were from low ranked nations, we did beat clubs from the Netherlands, Croatia, Sweden and Norway in that time.  Kairat Almaty and Qarabag may be regarded as stinkers compared to Sociedad/Burnley, but these clubs had players on 20k-a-week, and Qarabag will play in this week's CL play-off round (not for the first time).

Whilst we have not exactly performed to the standard of Celtic or post-Progrès Sevco - it is unfair to lump us with this catalogue of complete failure that other clubs have inflicted.

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by tarapoa

[AngusTheBull]

Losing to teams we ‘should’ be beating isn’t an exclusively Scottish phenomenon or emblematic of Scottish football despite the hand wringing on here. 
 

Malmo just got knocked out the champions league qualifiers 3-0 by a Lithuanian team, Olympiacos lost 5-1 to an Israeli team, the team who finished third in Turkey and pumped BATE Borisov the round before got knocked out by a team from Lichtenstein, Sparta Prague got put out by Viking Stavanger who Aberdeen comfortably beat two seasons ago.

Qarabag, whom people have been dismissing as a team of goat farmers, have pumped Lech Poznan (5-2), FC Zurich (5-4) and Ferencvaros (4-2) this qualifying path already. 

 

Cup competitions always throw up these results, particularly when you its the teams who have finished third, fourth or fifth in their domestic league and are at varying stages of pre-season. It really isn’t much different to say Hibs or St Mirren getting knocked out of the league cup by weaker opposition.

[Cardle is Magic]

Scottish football is absolutely shite quality and has been for years.

It's a shock when sides outside OF have good results, not when they lose.

[AsimButtHitsASix]

Wee lunchtime exercise. Took every country's co-efficient points and divided them by population. If you don't include any nations with a population under 1,000,000 (as it really skews the whole thing) we're the third best league by population in Europe. 

What a wonderful country we are!

[topcat(The most tip top)]

On 16/08/2022 at 22:46, AngusTheBull said:

Losing to teams we ‘should’ be beating isn’t an exclusively Scottish phenomenon or emblematic of Scottish football despite the hand wringing on here. 
 

Malmo just got knocked out the champions league qualifiers 3-0 by a Lithuanian team, Olympiacos lost 5-1 to an Israeli team, the team who finished third in Turkey and pumped BATE Borisov the round before got knocked out by a team from Lichtenstein, Sparta Prague got put out by Viking Stavanger who Aberdeen comfortably beat two seasons ago.

Qarabag, whom people have been dismissing as a team of goat farmers, have pumped Lech Poznan (5-2), FC Zurich (5-4) and Ferencvaros (4-2) this qualifying path already. 

 

Cup competitions always throw up these results, particularly when you its the teams who have finished third, fourth or fifth in their domestic league and are at varying stages of pre-season. It really isn’t much different to say Hibs or St Mirren getting knocked out of the league cup by weaker opposition.

so you’re saying…

Sligo Rovers are Small, Qarabeg are far away

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by topcat(The most tip top)

[bdu98196]

I think some fundamental points are being missed in this regarding why Scottish clubs get papped out of Eurpoe in early rounds and by teams from nations fans deem to be 'inferior'.

- Many of these teams come from leagues where they have different playing season timelines, so while our clubs are just getting back from holidays and trying to rebuild during transfer windows these clubs have squads that are fitter and more cohesive. (unless the whole playing window is going to change not much can counter that)

- Financially most clubs outwith the OF tend to opt for short term visions with players on loans and short contracts. The in/out policy of anywhere from 3 or 4 to 11 or 12 players every summer does not allow continuity and a platform to build. Factor in the moment a 'diddy' team is successful in then not just the OF, but English clubs come in with better PCA offers and away they go. Its hard to build a strong and consistent squad without the funds to dig deep and maintain it.

- Arrogance & ignorance (not just in Scotland but Western Europe) where the idea that post communist countries are bigger 'diddies' than us. Population wise we probably perform about average (factoring in the OF) but we fail to consider that there are not just different financial models at these clubs, but much like international football these nations are no longer a joke and can compete better than us. The money floating about in some of these clubs even the OF will struggle to compete with.

- The lack of home talent, which goes back to an earlier point of continuity. We follow the English (#Barclays) model of bringing in jobbers from anywhere (although on a shoestring budget) rather than giving indigenous and young talent a change. Look at the OF, there places in the CL while promoting the profile of Scottish football does not benefit the game here given there are hardly any local players. Other countries develop youth along side investment giving assets to sell on to the next tier of clubs - using Europe as a showcase platform to advertise their stock.

[effeffsee_the2nd]

On 12/08/2022 at 13:59, keptie said:

Most Scottish players lack of technique is appalling if you can't control the ball instantly without needing to take three touches first you are always going to struggle and no amount of running about is gonna make up for that. Don't really understand why we haven't fixed that with all the training kids get these days. 

having watched falkirk since being a teenager i can confirm this is absolutely painfully true, it is also the main reason why my career never progressed beyond playing fives with fat bevvying smokers, so i've no idea how half of these " full time professionals" made it tbh

[effeffsee_the2nd]

On 13/08/2022 at 10:42, DA Baracus said:

There is something in the mentality side I think. Nothing to do with effort etc, but so many of our managers absolutely shite it away from home, including in Europe. The National Team have often been guilty of this too.

I wonder if there was a fly on the wall in the away dressing room at parkhead or ibrox, how many times would it have heard a manager say words to the effect of " right lads lets be absolutely fucking clear, we're here to get this game out of the way so we can focus on the next run of games that really fucking matter to us, i don't want to see any herioics today, a point is more than enough at this place against them, let's keep it tight at all times. if we do go behind, not the end of the world, just keep on keeping it tight and protect our goal difference, we'll get home and start preparing for next week.

[jamamafegan]

Add tonight’s Hearts result to the list. A truly wonderful opportunity to get to the Europa League, the millions of pounds that comes with it and the potentially huge ties - blown. By far and away the better side in the first half, countless chances fluffed. Tynecastle, for all that it is lauded for its atmosphere, was as loud as a library, populated by fans who probably assumed they were going through. Zurich looked sharper in the second half and I’m not even convinced Hearts would have even progressed based on what I saw before their disaster of a red card. No bottle and a failure of an evening.

[G51]

There's no way you can look at some of the teams that have qualified for the UECL and tell me that Scotland shouldn't be getting at least one diddy side through the qualifying path for that tournament every season (not including the 3rd place team dropping into it by fucking the Europa qualifier). 

I know a lot of the really diddy sides like Linfield have qualified through a Champions route, but even through the League route, there are teams with significantly smaller budgets than Dundee Utd and Motherwell who have made it through. 

[Left Back]

I had a look at the pots for the CL draw yesterday and unless I'm mistake there was only two French teams in it?  Once of the so called big 5 leagues in Europe only gets the same amount of teams into the CL as us.  We can't be doing that bad when you look at it from that point of view.

[HailHailHayley]

On 13/08/2022 at 14:29, oaksoft said:

Crushing negativity is a Scottish cultural trait.

Solve that and half the battle is done.

Is there a successful country anywhere in the world with our level of negativity?

"Naaaaawwww."

"Whit's the point? It's still gonny be pure shite."

Even England isn't like this and they do like a wee moan down there.

Fucking hell. 

 

100%. Blame everyone else, refuse to look at themselves, offer nothing constructive, wonder why nothing changes. 

Repeat to fade...

[ahemps]

15 hours ago, G51 said:

There's no way you can look at some of the teams that have qualified for the UECL and tell me that Scotland shouldn't be getting at least one diddy side through the qualifying path for that tournament every season (not including the 3rd place team dropping into it by fucking the Europa qualifier). 

I know a lot of the really diddy sides like Linfield have qualified through a Champions route, but even through the League route, there are teams with significantly smaller budgets than Dundee Utd and Motherwell who have made it through. 

But the conference was set up exactly for these teams to qualify. The champions of Kosovo playing the Faroes opens up this path for these countries as the loser keeps dropping into another competition. It was a purpose of the conference league to allow more countries to have group stage football. It has achieved that. I bet most of these lower ranked countries it is their champion who has got group football???

Dundee Utd probably would beat FC Balkani but they are in different routes and this is deliberate. Balkani beat a San Marino, Faroes and Macedonian team to qualify. There are 36 countries with a representative in the group stages, that is by design and it is unfair to suggest we should have more when only the top 5 ranked countries still have their full allocation and the vast majority of other nations have seen at least 2 teams get eliminated.

Linfield haven't qualified. They lost all 3 qualifying rounds they were in.

[Elixir]

15 hours ago, jamamafegan said:

Add tonight’s Hearts result to the list. A truly wonderful opportunity to get to the Europa League, the millions of pounds that comes with it and the potentially huge ties - blown. By far and away the better side in the first half, countless chances fluffed. Tynecastle, for all that it is lauded for its atmosphere, was as loud as a library, populated by fans who probably assumed they were going through. Zurich looked sharper in the second half and I’m not even convinced Hearts would have even progressed based on what I saw before their disaster of a red card. No bottle and a failure of an evening.

Yeah, lad: Hertz with no recent European experience giving the Swiss Champs, who have a considerably larger wage bill than us, a close tie over two legs is dreadful failure. 

Just have to make do with Istanbul, Florence and Riga now.

[DiegoDiego]

Yeah, lad: Hertz with no recent European experience

It's been a six-year wait for Hearts, four years for FCZ, hardly a difference maker. You fucked it.

[HailHailHayley]

Out of curiosity I've just checked where FC Zurich are in the Swiss League atm. They're bottom. Last. 10th of 10.

Why do other SPFL fans put such low expectations on their own teams? Hearts should be beating the bottom club in Switzerland.

[Austin McCann]

10 minutes ago, HailHailHayley said:

Out of curiosity I've just checked where FC Zurich are in the Swiss League atm. They're bottom. Last. 10th of 10.

Why do other SPFL fans put such low expectations on their own teams? Hearts should be beating the bottom club in Switzerland.

You say should be beating, but they have a higher budget than Hearts. I get the fact they're not having a good season so far but "should"?

[HailHailHayley]

26 minutes ago, Austin McCann said:

You say should be beating, but they have a higher budget than Hearts. I get the fact they're not having a good season so far but "should"?

Fine, maybe "should" is too strong but at least acknowledge it's a bad result against a beatable team. 

This line of 'oh well it was the mighty Zurich so Hearts were always gonna lose' is just so defeatist & it's the type of attitude which holds Scottish football back.

[Austin McCann]

I've not seen anybody say anything about we were always going to lose. Losing is always a bad result and they were beatable but it's nonsense to suggest we lost because of a "defeatist attitude". Is that why Celtic get knocked out regularly by teams with smaller budgets?

[DiegoDiego]

This line of 'oh well it was the mighty Zurich so Hearts were always gonna lose' is just so defeatist & it's the type of attitude which holds Scottish football back.

Fans having a defeatist attitude after the event as a coping mechanism is far, far down the list of things holding Scottish football back. It makes next to no difference.