I've never been to Minsk, or indeed Belarus, but I have friends who have business interests out there and they said it's beautiful. I have been to Skopje, which is a fantastically fun city.
Anywhere off the British Isles for me, Ireland wouldn't be as bad as Wales (or an English border team that plays in Wales) like. That would be rather anticlimactic, though we'd pretty much definitely be in the Group Stage if so.
Actually, somewhere in Lithuania would be fantastic. They've got 3 teams in the qualifying stages, and their exchange rate is 4.5 LTL to the pound (can get a pint of San Miguel over there for a lovely 45 English pence). Beautiful country, beautiful cities such as Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga, oh and the ladies were voted 2nd most attractive in the world behind Sweden.
F**k me (not literally like - just in case ) but some of those names are mouthwatering. A Tigers trip on the ferry would be immense, I went on a cricket world cup trip quite a few years ago on the ferry to Amsterdam and it was a fantastic weekend. A similar trip with the Tigernation would be even better EDIT - the ferry actually went to Rotterdam (of course) but the game was in Amsterdam!
Was looking at potential opponents and ****ting bricks at the thought of drawing Inter. Can someone explain how the seeding works?
All English teams must prepare to be lubed up & bent over by Platini.... Actually no idea sorry, just wanted to slag that French twat off before someone else got in.
I can see we have a half-decent coefficient somehow, but no idea who it actually ensures we can't play. Obviously can't play Spurs in the play-off round, but besides that I know nowt.
I haven't got a ****ing clue what any of this means. Why's it always so technical? If it's possible, as I can't ****ing tell, let's play Bruges and get over on the ferry.
Basically, teams from the same nation can't face each other until the latter stages of the competition. The co-efficients are based on how well English teams do in Europe. For example, Kazakhstan had a **** one until Shatter Karagandy made the group stages last year. I think a country's performance on the International stage might also have something to do with it. I remember Scotland losing a Champions League spot after their international side did **** in the qualifying.
It's not that confusing fella. All the matches until the group stages are two legged and the seeded team usually plays away first, so it's unlikely we would be at home in the first leg unless a bigger team from the earlier rounds got through.
Yes. The first qualifying game is July 30th. But I think it will be away, I believe seeded teams draw the home fixture as the 2nd leg, but I'm not 100% on that. The big positive is, we only have short stop gaps this year between proper competitive football. Champions league final and play off games coming up, short 3 week break to the World Cup, then just two weeks I think between the World Cup and our first fixture. No excruciating long FWD suffering football-less summer. I think I just made up a medical condition there - football withdrawal depression.
that's what makes it more fun. better than the same tired old names. I fancy a trip to Latvia, or perhaps Madeira (Nacional)
