Spurs in the Europa League: Road to Gdańsk

[Trotter]

Yeah, Arsenal only team (maybe AC Milan if they win on pens) have a better ranking than us

Actually AC Milan would be in Pot 3.

Top seeds are Arsenal, Tottenham, Roma, Napoli, Benfica, Leverkusen, Villarreal, CSKA Moscow, Braga (and after Wolfsburg, Sporting and Basel lost tonight), PSV, Celtic and Gent.

Pot 2 looks mainly Eastern Europe plus Leicester. Toughest in there probably Sociedad, Young Boys and Standard Liege
Pot 3 would have Granada, AC MIlan, AZ67, Feyenoord, Rangers, Hoffenheim who would all make us play full strength side

 

[Marty]

Yeah, Arsenal only team (maybe AC Milan if they win on pens) have a better ranking than us

Milan have been out of Europe for so long I believe they're pot 3!

 

[easley91]

Can't believe Milan went through after all that. Does anyone know if we get all that intro guff the CL draw gets! Just want to stick it on and watch the draw itself.

 

[chrissivad]

Actually AC Milan would be in Pot 3.

Wow, wasn't expecting them to have fallen that far down.

 

[Trotter]

Pot 1 Arsenal Tottenham Hotspur Roma Napoli Benfica Bayer Leverkusen Villarreal CSKA Moscow Braga Gent PSV Eindhoven Celtic

Pot 2 Dinamo Zagreb Sparta Prague Slavia Prague Ludogorets Razgrad Young Boys Red Star Belgrade Rapid Wien Leicester City Qarabağ PAOK Standard Liège Real Sociedad

Pot 3 Granada AC Milan AZ 67 Alkmaar Feyenoord AEK Athens Maccabi Tel Aviv Rangers Molde 1899 Hoffenheim LASK Linz Hapoel Be'er Sheva

Pot 3 or 4 CFR Cluj Zorya Luhansk Pot 4 Lille Nice Rijeka Dundalk Slovan Liberec Antwerp Lech Poznań Sivasspor Wolfsberger AC Omonia CSKA Sofia

With qualifying being one legged, competition appears a little weaker than usual as quite a few shocks have happened, but don't forget 8 Champions League teams will join to make 32 after groups, and based on Champs League draw would predict RB Salzburg, Shakhtar or Inter, Porto, Ajax, Krasnodar, Lazio, Dinamo Kiev and either Leipzig or Man Utd

 

[Shadydan]

Would love Rangers

 

[Guernman]

Pot 1 Arsenal Tottenham Hotspur Roma Napoli Benfica Bayer Leverkusen Villarreal CSKA Moscow Braga Gent PSV Eindhoven Celtic

Pot 2 Dinamo Zagreb Sparta Prague Slavia Prague Ludogorets Razgrad Young Boys Red Star Belgrade Rapid Wien Leicester City Qarabağ PAOK Standard Liège Real Sociedad

Pot 3 Granada AC Milan AZ 67 Alkmaar Feyenoord AEK Athens Maccabi Tel Aviv Rangers Molde 1899 Hoffenheim LASK Linz Hapoel Be'er Sheva

Pot 3 or 4 CFR Cluj Zorya Luhansk Pot 4 Lille Nice Rijeka Dundalk Slovan Liberec Antwerp Lech Poznań Sivasspor Wolfsberger AC Omonia CSKA Sofia

With qualifying being one legged, competition appears a little weaker than usual as quite a few shocks have happened, but don't forget 8 Champions League teams will join to make 32 after groups, and based on Champs League draw would predict RB Salzburg, Shakhtar or Inter, Porto, Ajax, Krasnodar, Lazio, Dinamo Kiev and either Leipzig or Man Utd

Thanks for this - I was just trying to find this information on google Great stuff

 

[EQP]

Pot 1 Arsenal Tottenham Hotspur Roma Napoli Benfica Bayer Leverkusen Villarreal CSKA Moscow Braga Gent PSV Eindhoven Celtic

Pot 2 Dinamo Zagreb Sparta Prague Slavia Prague Ludogorets Razgrad Young Boys Red Star Belgrade Rapid Wien Leicester City Qarabağ PAOK Standard Liège Real Sociedad

Pot 3 Granada AC Milan AZ 67 Alkmaar Feyenoord AEK Athens Maccabi Tel Aviv Rangers Molde 1899 Hoffenheim LASK Linz Hapoel Be'er Sheva

Pot 3 or 4 CFR Cluj Zorya Luhansk Pot 4 Lille Nice Rijeka Dundalk Slovan Liberec Antwerp Lech Poznań Sivasspor Wolfsberger AC Omonia CSKA Sofia

With qualifying being one legged, competition appears a little weaker than usual as quite a few shocks have happened, but don't forget 8 Champions League teams will join to make 32 after groups, and based on Champs League draw would predict RB Salzburg, Shakhtar or Inter, Porto, Ajax, Krasnodar, Lazio, Dinamo Kiev and either Leipzig or Man Utd

I'm going with

Rapid Wien
Feyenoord
Dundalk

 

[Tweddled]

I think I'd like to see:

Standard Liege
Rangers
Dundalk

Definitely easier draws than this but it does seem like travelling further takes a lot out of the team, and if our furthest away game was in Belgium that could be useful.

 

[TheChosenOne]

Would love Rangers

With JD ?

 

[TheTanguy]

Would prefer some proper football clubs and still a very good chance of going through as there is zero excitement in playing Omonia away on a Thursday night in November. Give me something like (also easy to travel):

Spurs
Real Sociedad
Feyenoord / Rangers
Antwerp

 

[Who’s our next manager?]

Bring it on.

Cup win and automatic CL qualification please (unless UEFA suddenly turn around and say winning the competition won't count anymore, which seems inevitable now somehow).

Maccabi Haifa it is then.

Too soon for a sliding tackle into Fani joke.

How long have you been waiting for that? ???

 

[Who’s our next manager?]

And it's Maccabi Haifa. Can't remember us playing Israeli opponent before.

We played Ronnie Rosentjal quite a few times.Does that count?

 

[Sloop]

I think I'd like to see:

Standard Liege
Rangers
Dundalk

Definitely easier draws than this but it does seem like travelling further takes a lot out of the team, and if our furthest away game was in Belgium that could be useful.

In that group, Liege would be our nearest away game!
Rangers would be the furthest.

 

[C0YS]

I think I'd like to see:

Standard Liege
Rangers
Dundalk

Definitely easier draws than this but it does seem like travelling further takes a lot out of the team, and if our furthest away game was in Belgium that could be useful.

I know that this isn't an important point. But Standard Liege is actually the closest stadium to our training ground by quite a large margin, and the furthest? Rangers. London is really quite close to Belgium.

The distances?

Standard Liege - 287 miles
Dundalk - 372 miles
Rangers - 383 miles

If distance is our concern. We'd want the group to look like this

Standard Liege - 287 miles
Feyenoord - 217 miles
Lille - 174 miles

I think this whole being an island and being culturally closer to Ireland and, well, scotland, means people tend to forget that places, particularly in the south east of England, are closer to a lot of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and even some bits of Germany (say if we were playing borussia monchengladbach) than Scotland (Even Paris is less than 250 miles away, which is the same distance as London to Durham for reference).

 

[Tweddled]

In that group, Liege would be our nearest away game!
Rangers would be the furthest.

That's interesting - I was thinking more in terms of being furthest away from the UK (and ROI) and a time zone/culture change but that's good to know ?

 

[Tweddled]

I know that this isn't an important point. But Standard Liege is actually the closest stadium to our training ground by quite a large margin, and the furthest? Rangers. London is really quite close to Belgium.

The distances?

Standard Liege - 287 miles
Dundalk - 372 miles
Rangers - 383 miles

If distance is our concern. We'd want to group to look like this

Standard Liege - 287 miles
Feyenoord - 217 miles
Lille - 174 miles

I think this whole being an island and being culturally closer to Ireland and, well, scotland, means people tend to forget that places, particularly in the south east of England, are closer to a lot of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and even some bits of Germany than Scotland (Even Paris is less than 250 miles away, which is the same distance as London to Durham for reference).

I think Feyenoord and Lille are better than Dundalk and Rangers - I wasn't looking for a draw solely based on distance, just looking for the most acceptable journey for the easiest game, in my opinion. I think as you mentioned we're culturally closer which is sort of what I thought of at first glance, I'm not sure if it makes a difference but in my experience travelling to Scotland feels less taxing than Belgium or France

 

[rabbikeane]

Most difficult group:
Real Sociedad
Milan
Lille

Dream group, difficulty and travel:
Rapid Wien or Standard Liege
Molde
Dundalk

 

[C0YS]

I think Feyenoord and Lille are better than Dundalk and Rangers - I wasn't looking for a draw solely based on distance, just looking for the most acceptable journey for the easiest game, in my opinion. I think as you mentioned we're culturally closer which is sort of what I thought of at first glance, I'm not sure if it makes a difference but in my experience travelling to Scotland feels less taxing than Belgium or France

I wasn't presuming you were I was just curious.

It's interesting that you find it less taxing, because that really might be through cultural reasons, or just dealing with UK border control (which is the biggest pain) I don't, but then again I'm bi-national and have lived in many countries and travelled extensively.

In any case, when it comes to players it's travel, hotel, match and it's pretty much the same wherever. Ultimately, as long as we are dealing with 100s of miles and not 1000s it's a short trip that is unlikely to have any significant negative impacts.

 

[Tweddled]

I wasn't presuming you were I was just curious.

It's interesting that you find it less taxing, because that really might be through cultural reasons, or just dealing with UK border control (which is the biggest pain) I don't, but then again I'm bi-national and have lived in many countries and travelled extensively.

In any case, when it comes to players it's travel, hotel, match and it's pretty much the same wherever. Ultimately, as long as we are dealing with 100s of miles and not 1000s it's a short trip that is unlikely to have any significant negative impacts.

It's definitely cultural and a bit of border control - probably a moot point having a squad with players all over the world, but as I said my opinion was more on a first glance without much thought...apart from that the SSE Airtricity League is awful ? but I agree it won't make a big difference if we can keep our miles under 4 digits.