Dundalk FC . back in Europe 2023 . 👏👏👏

[Richie87]

Ireland is now at 36 in the Rankings. Latvia 1 ahead at 35

https://www.football-coefficient.eu/coe ... efficients

[seand]

It'll be June before the draw is made, but over the next few weeks the anoraks among us can pick through the qualifiers from the summer league countries.

[mike]

Was dusting down my own anorak Sean and thinking the same, esp as we are seeded, we can have a fair idea from say a list of 5 where potentials might come from.

What we will know for sure is, we will be starting on Thursday 6th July, either home or away, then Thurs 13th for second leg, win that and we should, we will have euro games every thurs in July, and possibly 03/08 + 10/08 if we get past 2 rounds.

So anyone wanting to travel, you will need to keep in mind those first two weeks in July if you have holiday plans, or maybe gamble and ensure week 3 and 4 in July are free for a second round trip.

[oldfogey]

Was dusting down my own anorak Sean and thinking the same, esp as we are seeded, we can have a fair idea from say a list of 5 where potentials might come from.

What we will know for sure is, we will be starting on Thursday 6th July, either home or away, then Thurs 13th for second leg, win that and we should, we will have euro games every thurs in July, and possibly 03/08 + 10/08 if we get past 2 rounds.

So anyone wanting to travel, you will need to keep in mind those first two weeks in July if you have holiday plans, or maybe gamble and ensure week 3 and 4 in July are free for a second round trip.

It's also worth remembering that the 4 sides qualifying for Europe will be free on the weekend of the 1st Leg of QR1. The fixture fairy will pit Rovers, Derry, Dundalk and Shels/Pats against each other. Those games were played on Monday 09 May this year. That's on top of the FAI front loading half the season into the first 3 and a half months.

[seand]

Was dusting down my own anorak Sean and thinking the same, esp as we are seeded, we can have a fair idea from say a list of 5 where potentials might come from.

What we will know for sure is, we will be starting on Thursday 6th July, either home or away, then Thurs 13th for second leg, win that and we should, we will have euro games every thurs in July, and possibly 03/08 + 10/08 if we get past 2 rounds.

So anyone wanting to travel, you will need to keep in mind those first two weeks in July if you have holiday plans, or maybe gamble and ensure week 3 and 4 in July are free for a second round trip.

According to UEFA calendar the first round is 13 and 20 July,, not 6 and 13. I think round 1 and 2 are drawn at the same time, so that'll give us a chance to make provisional plans!

[mike]

Is that a full two weeks later next season Sean? I thought it was usually first two weeks, fine if so.

[seand]

https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaconferen ... n-details/

Don't know if the World Cup is pushing back the end of the 2022-23 season or what, but it seems a week or two later starting alright

[oldfogey]

https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaconferen ... n-details/

Don't know if the World Cup is pushing back the end of the 2022-23 season or what, but it seems a week or two later starting alright

It will be interesting to see where the FAI position the Cup Final. 2nd weekend in November next year is 3 days after MD4. Rovers will obviously target Group Stage football again.

[niall_hearty2000]

https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaconferen ... n-details/

Don't know if the World Cup is pushing back the end of the 2022-23 season or what, but it seems a week or two later starting alright

It will be interesting to see where the FAI position the Cup Final. 2nd weekend in November next year is 3 days after MD4. Rovers will obviously target Group Stage football again.

They didn't change it for us so why should they change it for RVs.

[seand]

Because I can't help myself I've been looking at the access list for 2023-24 first qualifying round

Where CW = Cup winner, N2 = second in the league, etc, with the proviso that the CW place goes to the highest league team if the cup winners are in the Champions League

First qualifying round teams:
Kazakhstan: N3 (CW and N2 into round 2)
Slovakia, Slovenia, Belarus, Moldova, Lithuania, Bosnia, Finland, Luxembourg, Latvia, Kosovo: N2, N3 (CW into round 2)
Ireland, Armenia, N Ireland, Albania, Faroes, Estonia, Malta, Georgia, Macedonia, Wales: CW, N2, N3
Liechtenstein: CW (only one team qualifies)
Gibraltar, Iceland, Montenegro, Andorra, San Marino: CW, N2 (only 2 teams qualify)

I'll update this over the next few weeks as the 'summer' leagues finish up. Anyway, couple of countries done already.
Ireland: Dundalk (coefficient 8.5) will be seeded in rd1 (and rd2), Derry (3) and Pats (3) will be touch and go, I think 3.000 might not be enough for seeding next season.
Iceland will be KA (coefficent 1.45) and Vikingur Reykjavik (3). Vikingur probably unseeded , KA from Akuyrear in northern Iceland would be unseeded and a relatively high probability opponent.
Faroes: Vikingur (3), HB (5), B36 (6.5). Vikingur prob not seeded, the others will be seeded.
Finland: Honka (2.5), Haka (2.05) Honka from Espoo near Helsinki probably won't be seeded, Haka also from the south of the country will be unseeded. Honka and Haka seem probable opponents.
Kazakhstan: Tobol (6.5), will be seeded
Belarus: Energetik-BGU (1.975) and Bate (15!). Dynamo Minsk (5.5) finished fourth. Cup played 2022-23, and cup winners (which could be Energetik or BATE) straight into rd2. Energetik-BGU first Euro qualification, seems to be a Minsk University team. Possible first round opponents, would we even be able to travel to Belarus??
Latvia: Riga (10), RFS (6.5) both will be seeded (cup winners Auda (2) staight into second round on their debut)
Estonia: Levadia (6) will be seeded, Paide(4) possibly seeded; cup runs 2022-23
Lithuania: two from Hegelmann (2 never qualified before), Kauno Zalgiris (4.5 probably seeded), Panevezys (2.5), whoever finishes second in the league skips into round 2
Georgia: D Tbilisi (7.5) or D Batumi (4.5) one will be in CL, Torpedo (3.5) will surely win the cup, one for Samgurali or Dila Gori (both would be unseeded)

[mike]

Great work Sean, I'd love a trip to Lithuania, been to Tallin before (2018) but missed Riga, not sure we played a team from Lithuania before, just Latvia and Estonia from that region.

Do you think there is any chance we might get a bye into round 2 Sean with our high coefficient of 8.5, or will this just be an advantage (unless undseeded team not too strong) and we will start off in R1 ?

[oldfogey]

Great work Sean, I'd love a trip to Lithuania, been to Tallin before (2018) but missed Riga, not sure we played a team from Lithuania before, just Latvia and Estonia from that region.

Do you think there is any chance we might get a bye into round 2 Sean with our high coefficient of 8.5, or will this just be an advantage (unless undseeded team not too strong) and we will start off in R1 ?

Here's the link to Bert Kassies page. It is provisional in that it presupposes that (a) Russia will still be excluded and (b) the winners of the Champions League and Europa League DON'T qualify for the group stages via their own league. e.g. Top 4 in England automatically go into the group stages of CL. If Man City win the CL and Arsenal win the EL, and both finish in the top 4, it has a knock-on effect in earlier rounds, but only for CL, or the Champions path in EL and/or the Conference(ECL). This season, 2 clubs received a bye in QR2 of the Conference Champions path. As with any byes, it was done on the basis of drawing lots.

https://kassiesa.net/uefa/AccessList2023.html

Here's a link to how the current seasons Conference panned out as it shows the seeding at each round. Note some clubs inherited the seeding of the (higher ranked) team they beat as the draw for the next round was made before the previous round was completed.

https://kassiesa.net/uefa/seedecl2022.html

[Richie87]

There was 2 clubs this year in Round 1 of the Conference League with a higher seeding then Dundalk. Flora Tallinn and a Macedonian team , Shkendija Tetova. Tallinn were on 9.75 and Tetova were on 9.0

I don't see Dundalk getting a bye into round 2.

[seand]

Your coefficient doesn't decide what round you start in. That's set in stone before the start of the season and based onthecountry's historic performance. We could go to the Conference final, get our coefficient up to 40 and would still start in round 1 the following year because of Irelands historically poor performance.
So I've listed above exactly who will be in round 1. Slightly higher ranked counties see their cup winners get a bye into round 2, regardless of their coefficient. For example Riga will probably finish second in Latvia and start in round 1 with a coefficient of 10, but the Latvian cup winners Auda will start in round 2 with a coefficient of 2. Your club coefficient gets you seeded, your country's overall performance determines where you start. Last season we had a higher coefficient than Vitesse (and we were seeded against them!) but they started 2 rounds after us because Hollands 5th qualifier starts in round 3.

[Richie87]

Samrock Rovers getting into the Group stages has brought Ireland up to 36th in the table.