The CL Permutations Thread

[Pirate55]

A Martin Jol team to score a late goal? Surely it would be the other way round.

Think they have more chance of scoring a meaningful late goal than us - unfortunately

 

[jaysea67]

Will we be seeded?

99% guaranteed, yes.

Following Lille's victory in the French league yesterday, Lyon can no longer qualify for next season's Champions League. If Spurs are in the CL play-offs they are now 100% guarenteed to be seeded.

That result also means that if Spurs are in the draw for the CL group stages they would be in Pot 2 - not that being in Pot 3 did us any harm last time and that really is getting ahead of the current situation.

 

[jaysea67]

Strongly suspect Napoli and Lazio would both be seeded. Not sure about Udinese though

I think it's in the balance whether or not they would be seeded. Teams from Ukraine, Portugal, Turkey and Russia are likely to be ranked above them if they progress from the previous qualifying round plus the English team (unless it's Saudi Sportswashing Machine).

 

[ArcspacE]

Thanks mate, always great info

Didn't know we had mate it into Pot 2!

 

[Naughton16]

Seriously not a good idea to talk about this kind of stuff!

 

[BrainOfLevy]

I think Fulham aren't a typical 'park the bus' kind of team so we should find space against them and if we can find space, at home we will create chances and hopefully win the game.

We just need WBA to do us a favour which I can't see happening. Deflected shots falling into the path of RVP-galore in that game I feel. Or the WBA defenders falling completely asleep as Song is allowed to chip a pass ever so nicely into his path. The amount of times that has happened this season is completely ridiculous.

Then it will all rest of Bayern beating Chelsea. I think that is more likely that WBA doing us a favour. People seem seriously worried that Bayern can't do it which I find strange. Bayern are an excellent team. Chelsea lost to Saudi Sportswashing Machine, have got some serious luck under RDM and I think people are just worried that Bayern won't help us out because they aren't an English team and therefore we don't see them every week. But I've got a lot of confidence in good ole' German efficiency helping us out. Bayern went to Madrid and more than matched them. I think they can handle a Chelsea with Bosingwa at centre back and Eddie Newton in midfield or whatever combination they are going to haver to play to cover up for their suspensions.

 

[King of Norway]

If we should finish 4th and Chelsea don't win the CL, which teams are likely to be in the opposite pot in the qualifying round? Are there any geeks on European football who knows that, based on the rankings/seeding system and the current standings in European leagues?

I think it might be extremely tough based on what I know. Malaga and M?Ânchengladbach bound to be two of our potential opponents.

 

[mudshark]

I think the fact that the Chelski fans booed the Hillsborough minutes silence in the semi (strange that the media didn't make more of thos before the Final on saturday:-k) and obviously the final itself, plus the 'Goal was it over the line' means Liverpool will be well up for this game and I fully expect to beat Chelsea by at least two clear goals.

I felt before Saturday that Chelski would win the Cup Final but get battered at Anfield. I'm confident part two will happen as well.

Well, all will be revealed tonight. My problem believing Liverpool will get anything from the game is that, if they do, we'll be able to go into Sunday knowing that even a loss would be enough for 4th as long as the Mags don't win at Goodison, whereas a Chelsea win will ensure we absolutely have to beat Fulham. I just checked my Spurs-o-meter, and it reads the latter.

 

[noddy1991]

If we should finish 4th and Chelsea don't win the CL, which teams are likely to be in the opposite pot in the qualifying round? Are there any geeks on European football who knows that, based on the rankings/seeding system and the current standings in European leagues?

I think it might be extremely tough based on what I know. Malaga and M?Ânchengladbach bound to be two of our potential opponents.

i'll have a bash based on current league positions

directly through to the play off round would be with coefficients

tottenham 66
malaga 16 (country ranking not played in europe last 5 years)
borussia moenchengladbach 15 (same as malaga)
udinese 38.9
lille 38.8

3rd qualifying round (5 winners to play off round)

braga 63
cska moscow 80
dynamo kiev 62
feyenoord 12
fenerbahce 41
panathinaikos 50
nordjaelland (denmark) 8
bruges 35
vaslui (romania) 13
motherwell 6

likely final play off round line up based on higher ranked teams qualifying

seeded

cska
tottenham
braga
kiev
panathinaikos

unseeded

malaga
moengladbach
fenerbahce
udinese
lille

as you can see the unseeded teams are likely to be stronger than the seeded teams cos non of them have much recent european football. it's gonna be tough !

 

[paxtonwolf]

Wow Braga have really shot up the Coefficients table recently. Just shows what a few good runs in the CL and EL can do for a team

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Wow...so if we get 4th and Chelsea don't win the CL, we are likely to only have a 50-50 shot of getting through to the group stages. Malaga and Udinese won't be easy at all and I can't imagine Moenchengladbach will be pushovers after doing well in a strong Bundesliga. A trip to Turkey would not be easy at all with so much on the line and Lille always seem to have a bit of quality.

Maybe 65/35 in our favour based on the likelihood that we may get one of the 'lesser' teams that are unseeded but that actually makes me a lot more relaxed about this weekend than I had been previously. It seemed like it was all or nothing but really we'd still have a massively long way to go and we were incredibly lucky to get Young Boys last time.

If WBA can do us a favour can get us into third then great, but it's not as if finishing 4th is going to be party-worthy because everything is acheived. I'll be absolutely over the moon with 3rd, but won't be disheartened with 4th, 5th or 6th because there would have been a long way to go anyway.

 

[King of Norway]

looks extremely tough if that is how it will end up. The UEFA ranking system is a bit of a joke really. The strongest teams end up being unseeded (expect us of course, who get punished for it. We always seem to draw the shortest draw in every situation)

 

[noddy1991]

obviously malaga's the one you'd really want to avoid. dunno who plays for them but a huge amount of middle eastern money poured into them like city and psg. that said the 3rd and 4th spanish teams have generally been poor in the CL recently. braga knocked out sevilla this season.

 

[billyiddo]

Wow Braga have really shot up the Coefficients table recently. Just shows what a few good runs in the CL and EL can do for a team

yea it's funny that doing well in Europe affects your coefficients :-"

 

[paxtonwolf]

yea it's funny that doing well in Europe affects your coefficients :-"

Yep. I asked for that now I've read it back #-o

 

[BrainOfLevy]

I'm coming round to the idea of it not really being the be all and end all if we qualify for the CL or not. It doesn't suddenly put us into a 'new era' where the quality of players we can sign shoots up immeasurably, the wages we can offer increase too and that we will have finally joined the elite, never to fall out again.

The fact is even if we finished comfortably in third this season, we would still be the same club with the same 36,000 seater stadium with the same wage structure that helps us stay afloat financially and compete where we are. One season in the CL wouldn't change that, just like it didn't before, and it won't neccesarily make us more likely to qualify for it the next year either.

I may sound negative and like I'm getting my excuses in before we ultimately fail but the fact is the CL is a minimum of 6, likely to be 8 or 10 games for us. If we make the quarters, 6 of those games would probably have been against glamour teams and 4 would have been against the type of European minnows that would probably end up mid-table in the Premier League. It's stupid that potentially finishing say 1 place below the CL places on goal difference or by a point may let our season be seen as failure and not success, and it's not as if the Europa League has been an awful competition to be a part of this year. It seems like it's only in England that fans are obsessed with the CL, fans even in Spain, Germany etc seem to be well involved. It's produced some of the most exciting football this season.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that even if we don't make it, we don't have to go into meltdown. It won't be the worst thing that's ever happened to us. We could be Blackburn fans, or Plymouth fans. At the end of the day we will still support a top 6 Premier League club that would likely be top 6 again next season anyway. Finishing top 4 this season is no guarentee of finishing there next season too, because Chelsea won't be as poor and therefore it will be just as hard. I will be annoyed if we are not competing on a more equal level with them once we have our new stadium, but until then I'm happy supporting a successful, stable club at the top end of the top league in our country.

Let's say we don't make the group stages. Maybe Modric and Bale and end up needing to be sold. But maybe that gives us the kind of war-chest we need to build a quality squad that can see us through until the new stadium is finalised. Maybe Harry ends up going and we bring in a young coach with new ideas that puts us on a great footing for once we can really compete. It wouldn't be the end of the world. We'd still be here. We all live for the glory glory nights, but I'm sure they will come back eventually.

 

[jaysea67]

Only Borussia M?Ânchengladbach have qualified for the play-offs so far and Braga, Feyenoord and Motherwell for the 3rd qualifying round.

 

[Nutter-Naylor]

I never realised that if CFC win the CL they get an automatic spot in the group stages & the team that comes third have to play the qualifier!

Or at least that what i have just been informed! Anyone know for sure?

 

[billyiddo]

I never realised that if CFC win the CL they get an automatic spot in the group stages & the team that comes third have to play the qualifier!

Or at least that what i have just been informed! Anyone know for sure?

pretty sure whoever comes 3rd (should Chelsea win the CL) still get an automatic group spot

 

[Milas_Spur]

looks extremely tough if that is how it will end up. The UEFA ranking system is a bit of a joke really. The strongest teams end up being unseeded (expect us of course, who get punished for it. We always seem to draw the shortest draw in every situation)

Young Boys was a brilliant draw for us.