BrahimHemdani

[tweet]877143508620017664[/tweet]

That's interesting because UEFA are still showing

Matches

28 June 2017

First qualifying round

Ibrox Stadium Glasgow

RANGERS- PROGRÈS

03 July 2017

First qualifying round

Stade Josy Barthel Luxembourg

"Stade Josy Barthel is the national stadium of Luxembourg, home to the Luxembourg national football team and also used for rugby union and athletics."

If the home game is defo on the Thursday seem unlikely the away leg would be on the Monday.

Differdange are at home on Wed 05 July 2017

but that's listed for Stade Municipal de Differdange Differdange

I doubt it's within Rangers gift to do so.

i'm not blaming Rangers but at the same time they would have to agree to any changes before UEFA rubber stamp is applied.

Was always a strong possibility of a change especially in the first round.

 

Try finding an accessible one! Larnaca is even worse

I accept that but it should have been sorted last night or first thing this morning.

True. It has often been observed that I am wired to a Planet, yet to be discovered.

It must be a near planet if such observation scan be made.

I have emailed Stewart Robertson:

Hi Stewart,

I don't think I'm alone in having booked flights and accommodation for Luxembourg as soon as the draw was made, before the warnings came out and I thought I had covered all the bases by going out on Wednesday 5th and returning Saturday 8th.

(In my experience Rangers away UEFA Cup or Europa League games have only ever been moved by one day from Thursday to Wednesday vs Osasuna in Pamplona in March 2007.)

Whilst I appreciate that there will be exceptional demand for this match and both Clubs will want to accommodate as many travelling fans as possible it should all have been sorted last night if not first thing this morning..

The fact that there still seems to be a possibility of a switch of home legs never mind ongoing uncertainty over dates is ridiculous.

Last night I could have switched flights for a £60 fee only which was the risk I knew I was taking but now the flights themselves are way up and the hotels are through the roof, that's if you can get one at all.

I would appreciate if you could do your best to resolve this situation as quickly as possible.

BH as he waits for confirmation of the dates

 

TBF it is a bit of a shambles by UEFA, once again no consideration given to the fans to allow travel arrangements, the draw could/should have taken place a week ago!

Agreed, all teams would have been known at least 2 weeks ago so can't see why they drag it out.

I don't think I'm alone in having booked flights before the warnings came out and this should all have been sorted last night if not first thing this morning.

The fact that there still seems to be a possibility of a switch is ridiculous and I am suspicious that this is not all down to Progres because Rangers will know that there will be exceptional demand for this match.

Last night I could have switched flights for a £60 fee only which was the risk I knew I was taking but now the flights themselves are way up and the hotels are through the roof, that's if you can get one at all.

am I missing a joke here? Take it I am

 

It's st Joseph's of Gibraltar we might be playing

Uilleam exists on a higher planet than most of the rest of us lesser mortals; but yes, it was a joke and quite a good one IMO; something of double entendre in fact.

Still the two different dates shown on UEFA site and nothing on Rangers'.

Just spoke to the TO.

The issue is that the Progres ground is not up to UEFA standards, so they want to switch to the National Stadium; but there is already a game booked in there on the Thursday.

Initially they wanted to switch the home and away legs, which is still a possibility apparently.

Bottom line no dates confirmed as yet.

UEFA DECISION EXPECTED THIS MORNING

First leg showing as Thursday 29th and Second leg showing as Tuesday the 4th here

http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/season=2017/matches/index.html#rd/2000886/2

Any way to verify if the change of date is confirmed, then I can change my flights?

Should have listened to the Club saying wait before organizing flights etc then

Yes indeed, but wanted to get the flights booked before they went up, booked to go out on Wed thinking it would be Wed or Thurs.

Looks like the info is accurate, Differdange v Zira is listed for the 5th.

Clicked on a few others and the dates are all over the place, a lot of first legs on the Wed as well.

According to UEFA web site the dates are 28/06 for the 1st game & 03/07 for the 2nd game??

 

 

http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/season=2018/clubs/club=50121/index.html

It had better not be, the 3rd is the Monday and I fly out on the Wednesday

I had a Holiday in Luxembourg and the thing that stood out for me was the amount of languages they speak. Most speak French,German, Dutch and English.

I knew you were the intellectual type, Pete.

The last line caught my attention the most BH

I have a picture somewhere, I'll see if I can find it, naturally they were dawn by my animal magnetism

Completely agree. If we can't kill the tie at Ibrox it will be a very tense occasion over there. Heat, atmosphere, recent experience in Europe, disadvantage of second leg away, team gelling or not, plus they have a smattering of Brazilians so you would imagine have technical ability.

 

We will want a 50k crowd at Ibrox and our team playing at pace to get on top of them.

 

There were a lot easier ties than this.

Frankie mentioned earlier in the thread that Rangers struggled, some 20 years ago, against Anorthosis Famagusta.

I remember it well, and struggle we did. Qualified, mark you.

 

I do have to suggest that players from Mexico, Portugal, and Colombia will perhaps find adjustment to the heat, etc., somewhat easier than our players did then.

It wasn't quite as long ago, I was there on 9 August 2005; actually we were well on top 2-0 but ran out of steam and ended up holding on for the 2-1 victory against Temur Ketsbaia's Anorthosis team that also boasted one Georgi Kinkladze.

Rangers: Waterreus, Pierre-Fanfan, Andrews, Rodriguez, Ball, Ricksen, Ferguson, Murray, Buffel (Lovenkrands 58), Novo (Burke 79), Prso (Thompson 74).

Subs Not Used: Klos, Malcolm, Alex Rae, McCormack.

Booked: Ball, Ricksen, Andrews.

Goals: Novo 64, Ricksen 71.

No question, heat will be a big factor; it's forecast 32/33C there in mid July.

By the way, the women are hot too; they get my vote as the most attractive of any European country I've visited on Rangers travels.

First and second rounds should be a formality with the bonus being it will be four good workouts to get the team up to full fitness for the real challenge the third round may be.

 

If we had been able to chose the opposition these teams would have been in the preferred candidates list.

Yes in terms of Luxembourg, BUT and it's a big BUT.....

It may have escaped your attention that Cypriot football has been on the up for many years and their clubs' performances have put them 5-10 places ahead of Scotland in the UEFA coefficient country rankings for the 6 years up to 2016 and just one place behind us last season.

Apollon Limassol qualified for the group stages of the EL two years running: in 2013/14 after defeating Nice 2-0 at home in the play-off round and 2014/15 after quite probably one of the most astonishing results ever, in Europe certainly in the qualifiers, beating Lokomotiv Moscow 4-1 in Moscow for a 5-2 aggregate.

Apollon Limassol is anything but a formality.

I am not accepting that we lost these games because one Alistair Murdoch McCoist thought we could send a half fit team who had just started training for the new season against teams that were midway through their season. Ally McCoist lost us those games by being in holiday in Portugal(LoL) up until 2 weeks before the tie.

McCoist made two big mistakes in Maribor, gambling with Bocanegra 24 hours after signing him and the dash from France and changing tactics in the second half after (rightly) taking off Naismith at half time before he was got off.

However, we lost in Malmo because uncharacteristically Whittaker and entirely predictably Bougherra (in his last match) lost the plot; and Jelavic (after scoring a fantastic volley from Edu's long ball) missed with the goalie to beat to take us through. Of course it's arguable, and I did before the match, that Bougherra should not have played but Weir was injured and Papac had to revert to CB.

Second friendly against a team who are also in the European Qualifying rounds, smart move imo, although TNS are in the Champions League

 

If we win, can we swap positions

And get their 5.775 coefficient......

Well, there is a reason that beyond the Yahoos so little comes to the Scottish co-efficient. While other Scottish teams may navigate the first rounds (while still being in pre-season mode), they usually end up against decent enough teams from the better leagues in Europe and that drop out. Since most lesser teams play against eually lesser team at the start, they hardly get any points on the boards before someone of a higher standard puts them to the sword in round 2 etc.. As has been said, while it looks a grand gesture of the UEFA to let so many teams enter the "qualification" to the Europa League, only 2 teams out of roughly 500 have actually managed to get to the group stages after starting with Q1 in recent years.

 

Take the opponents of today's friendly as an example: They play Europa FC of Gibraltar in Q1, and are up next against the champions (no less) of Croatia in Q2, HNK Rijeka. (How the Croat champs ended up there is beyond me, but ... )

I agree with your analysis plus the fact that only half points are awarded in the qualifiers.

As to NK Rijeka, Croatia are 17th meaning their champions get a bye to the CLQ2 and NK Rijeka Cro 15.550 are seeded.

Fola Esch are at home in the first leg but Differdange are at home in the second leg so one or other may wish to switch dates.

Has to be better than Pal Joey

Has it always been this difficult to qualify for the Europa / UEFA? I seem to remember it being a reliable backup if not on the CL, not some nightmare to qualify for. Or is it just that our coefficient is so poor now?

The later i believe.

We were almost seeded in the past and got to join with the big boys in r3/r4 I think.

Looking at that list of potential teams is frightening but still be good to see the big teams back at Ibrox

I think it's a combination of factors.

The last twice we played in the old UEFA Cup there was only one qualifying round and we scraped through in 2004 vs Maritimo on penalties thanks to the legendary Gregory Vignal's penalty after losing 1-0 in Madeira, winning 1-0 at home (Prso) and 2006 vs Molde 2-0 (Buffel and Ferguson) after 0-0 in the Fjords.

In 2008 of course we dropped down from the CL before going to Manchester.

We have only played once in the Europa League, suffering ignominious defeat 3-2 on aggregate to Maribor in Q4 in 2011 after equally ignominious defeat to Malmo in the CLQ3.

So it has never been easy at least not in the last 7/8 years we played in Europe.

However, the Europa League format of four qualifying rounds makes it much harder; Scotland's poor coefficient means having to start in Q1 and our own lack of any coefficient other than 20% of what the other teams have amassed over the past 5 years just compounds the problem.

Incidentally, next season Scotland will be marginally better off as we finished 23rd this season (based on last 5 years) so the CW will automatically gain entry to Q2 (rather than through the back door this time*) but the N2 and N3 will still start in ELQ1.

* Since the Champions League title holder (Real Madrid) already qualified for the group stage of the Champions League, the Europa League title holder (Manchester United) gains access to the group stage of the Champions League, and leave an open spot in the Europa League group stage. This open spot will be taken by the cup winner of the 13th country on the ranking list (Czech Republic). The cup winner of the 18th country on the ranking list (Poland) has direct access to the 3rd qualifying round, and the cup winners of the 25th and 26th countries on the ranking list (Scotland and Azerbaijan) have direct access to the 2nd qualifying round of the Europa League.

https://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/seedel2017.html

Our Champions will have to get through four qualifiers to get to the group stages of the CL.

We have to get up to 17th even to improve one round on that in both the CL and EL.

The latter. It's incredible the level of teams that we would have to play prior to the group stages.

It gets worse because " The 15 clubs defeated in the 3rd qualifying round of the CL, are entitled to play in the 4th qualifying round of the Europa League,"

Any of these....

Seeded teams coef. Unseeded teams coef.

------------------------ --- ---------------- ------------------------ --- ----------------

Olympiakos Piraeus Gre 64.580 Malmö FF ** Swe 16.945

Celtic ** Sco 42.785 FK Astana ** Kaz 16.800

FC Salzburg ** Aut 40.570 Partizan Belgrade ** Srb 16.075

FC København ** Den 37.800 NK Rijeka ** Cro 15.550

Ludogorets Razgrad ** Bul 34.175 Rosenborg BK ** Nor 12.665

BATE Borisov ** Bls 29.475 Sheriff Tiraspol ** Mol 11.150

Legia Warsaw ** Pol 28.450 Hapoel Beer-Sheva ** Isr 10.875

APOEL Nicosia ** Cyp 26.210 Slavia Praha Cze 8.135

NK Maribor ** Slo 21.125 FH Hafnarfjardar ** Isl 6.175

Garabag Agdam ** Azb 18.050 Viitorul Constanta Rom 5.870

For the draw of the 3rd round the 20 teams are divided into 2 groups of 10 teams.

3rd Qualifying Round for Non-Champions (10 teams)

Seeded teams coef. Unseeded teams coef.

------------------------ --- ---------------- ------------------------ --- ----------------

Dinamo Kiev Ukr 67.526 Steaua Bucuresti Rom 35.370

Ajax Ned 67.212 Young Boys Sui 28.915

Viktoria Plzen Cze 40.635 OGC Nice Fra 16.833

CSKA Moscow Rus 39.606 Istanbul Basaksehir Tur 10.340

Club Brugge Bel 39.480 AEK Athens Gre 6.580

That's outrageous!

You mean that I am looking that far ahead or that we will almost certainly get a tough draw if we make it?