Champions and Europa League Groups Stage Draw 2013/14

Tomwin Lannister wrote:The whole tournament is a joke, and it punishes clubs who do Ok by consistently getting in the CL as opposed to mopping up points in the Europa.

Where does it punish clubs who just do okay? Arsenal and Real are still in Pot 1 last I looked.

For example.

Getting to the group stages but every year but not advancing is worse off than getting to the last 16/8 of the Europa.

So playing against some of Europes finest and failing to get anywhere is less worthwhile (In terms of co-eff points) than beating 2nd/3rd rate teams from weak leagues. Which is just wrong.

Benfica, Porto and Arsenal being in pot 1 While clubs like Dortmund, Juve and Milan are in pot 2 and 3.

I mean wtf.

Tomwin Lannister wrote:So playing against some of Europes finest and failing to get anywhere is less worthwhile (In terms of co-eff points) than beating 2nd/3rd rate teams from weak leagues. Which is just wrong.

So teams like Spurs, Atletico, Chelsea, ManCity, Inter, Lazio etc are 2nd/3rd rate teams from weak leagues?

Chelsea were in the CL so they got a bypass to the K.O rounds

Inter. Not in a weak league, but that doesn't change the fact they're a mid-table club.

Spurs youth team is not much of a challenge.


There are a couple of decent teams in the Europa. But compare them to the quality to the teams you WILL face in the CL when you're in pot 3/4.


You could get into the last 32 in the Europa league without meeting even a half-decent team. But you would get more co-eff points than a CL club that finishes bottom of the pot.

AltoZ wrote:The worst teams from Pot 1 are Portugese + ManU,

Arsenal never gets KO'ed in the Group Stage. And they will buy some new players.

The obsession continues

Wow only just seen that. Every post he makes takes a dig at United.

Alt, who do you support?

Tomwin Lannister wrote:There are a couple of decent teams in the Europa. But compare them to the quality to the teams you WILL face in the CL when you're in pot 3/4.

You could get into the last 32 in the Europa league without meeting even a half-decent team. But you would get more co-eff points than a CL club that finishes bottom of the pot.

Well, if you are in Pot 3/4 you can meet teams like Arsenal, Benfica, Schalke, ZSKA, Marseille... which don't really have to be such major challenges either.

Yes if you're extremely lucky as a pot 4 team you could draw a group that is only slightly better than the top groups in the Europa league. But on average, by quite some distance, you'll be facing much harder competition whilst getting much less Co eff points than clubs who constantly fail to get into the CL and finish 1st/2nd in their Europa league groups.


Look at Newcastles group in the EL

Bordeaux
Maritimo
Club Brugge


Now look at Nordsjaelland and their group

Chelsea
Shakhtar
Juventus.


Now club Brugge who collected 1 point and finished with a -5 GD got more co-eff points from the group stages than FC Nords.

And what i'm saying is that it's wrong to have teams who do well in the Europa because they're not good enough to get into the CL gain more points than clubs who are good enough to get into the CL but not make a significant impact. The two tournaments should be seperate and have seperate co-eff points.

Tomwin Lannister wrote:And what i'm saying is that it's wrong to have teams who do well in the Europa because they're not good enough to get into the CL gain more points than clubs who are good enough to get into the CL but not make a significant impact. The two tournaments should be seperate and have seperate co-eff points.

But if a team doesn't get any points in the CL, maybe it just isn't good enough for that and if a team collects many points in the EL, maybe it should earn trying themselves against better opponents that way?

That would be better. But that is not how it works.


Regardless of what that team does in the EL, it doesn't put them in the CL. They could win the entire competition, but they still need to qualify for the CL by doing well enough in their own league. So it's two seperate things.


It would be better if the EL had no impact on the CL and vice versa.

Also it would be better if the EL winners gained the right to play in the CL no matter where they are in their own domestic league.

Tomwin Lannister wrote:That would be better. But that is not how it works.

Regardless of what that team does in the EL, it doesn't put them in the CL. They could win the entire competition, but they still need to qualify for the CL by doing well enough in their own league. So it's two seperate things.

Well, the more points teams collect in the EL, it affects the 5-year-coefficient for the league and that coefficient determines the number of starters for the CL / EL. So if a league collects many points in the EL it can get another starting place in the CL, thus rewarding one of the better teams in the EL, if all things go well.

Tomwin Lannister wrote:Also it would be better if the EL winners gained the right to play in the CL no matter where they are in their own domestic league.

AFAIK this is in the plans of the UEFA for 2014/15 or so.

Tomwin Lannister wrote:Yes if you're extremely lucky as a pot 4 team you could draw a group that is only slightly better than the top groups in the Europa league. But on average, by quite some distance, you'll be facing much harder competition whilst getting much less Co eff points than clubs who constantly fail to get into the CL and finish 1st/2nd in their Europa league groups.


Look at Newcastles group in the EL

Bordeaux
Maritimo
Club Brugge


Now look at Nordsjaelland and their group

Chelsea
Shakhtar
Juventus.


Now club Brugge who collected 1 point and finished with a -5 GD got more co-eff points from the group stages than FC Nords.

And what i'm saying is that it's wrong to have teams who do well in the Europa because they're not good enough to get into the CL gain more points than clubs who are good enough to get into the CL but not make a significant impact. The two tournaments should be seperate and have seperate co-eff points.

Tbf their was tougher groups than that lol, we got like the easiest group imaginable lmao.

Tomwin Lannister wrote:Considering Juves schedule is disgusting in Serie A this year, i'd like a nice easy group. Maybe with 1 top pot 1 team to let us prepare for the knockouts.

That only means Llorente will get to play

That is true. However even if results are continually great, the time it would take most countries to overtake numerous other countries and gain another spot would be years and years down the line.

And i've been saying the EL winners getting into the CL is the right thing to do for so long. It would vastly improve the tournament. Because clubs like lazio who can almost never gain CL qualification domestically would have real reasons to try and win the EL.

As things stand now, clubs have no incentive to compete in the EL.

It fatigues the squad, can give you injuries, the profit is extremely little. Infact small clubs who aren't good enough to do anything in the EL can lose money.

There is no reason to want that cup. A CL place is more than a big incentive.

Even then Mole. The toughest EL groups were maybe, just maybe on par with the worst CL groups.

rwo power wrote:

stevieg8 wrote:Well I'd say that because the coefficients are supposed to be a measure of team strength, the quality of competition matters greatly... You don't rank the Championship winners alongside ManU, do you?  It doesn't mean winning the Championship is easier, because it's competition at an equal level, but ManU would (and will) win that game 9 times out of 10.

Well, but that's why the CL has the first 1-4th or 1-3rd teams of a league, while the EL has the 4-6th or 5-7th plus the Cup winners. So each of the competitions measures the strength of a slightly different segment of a league. So you can see by the additon of points of CL and EL actually the relative strength of the leagues and not just of their top teams.

OK, so I agree that the coefficient points should be equal when talking about league coefficient. Succeeding in the EL measures the lower segment of your league, while succeeding in the CL measures the higher segment. Although allowing teams to parachute in from the CL hurts that theory; Chelsea winning last year simply showed that 1-4 in one league was stronger than 4-6 in others - not quite what we're talking about. I'll ignore that for now though, it's a different topic.

Anyway, I was referring to team coefficients. I was under the impression that the point of the seeding was to make sure that the strongest teams don't have to face each other too early, and that all teams have an equal chance of going through; the coefficients insure there isn't a group of, say, ManU, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern, leaving two of the biggest draws and strongest teams out of the knockout stages. If that IS the goal (I could be wrong, I don't know much about how the system was developed), than success in the CL should be more valuable than success in the EL, because it shows you're a stronger side. For instance, Chelsea - who were knocked out in the group stages - clearly were not as strong a team as Bayern last year, despite both teams winning finals. If the goal is what I said it is, Chelsea should have a lower score from that year.

Phritz wrote:Since when are they a standard of a teams strength? If they were it'd be an ELO based coefficient (like just about every competition related ranking system) and not a flat points bonus determining aptitude in European competition. Heck, sometimes it doesn't matter who wins because penalty shootouts = 1 point per team, no matter who wins the shootout.

There's a difference in ranking how well a team does well in European competition and ranking them based on betting odds.

Then maybe I don't understand how the coefficient works; I was under the impression that you gained points based on how far in the competition you went, which is a simplistic version of "who is the strongest team." Obviously if they wanted to make the measurements more precise, they could, but considering the different levels of quality around the leagues it would be impossible to use anything but European competition. The improvements they could make, from my eyes, are: 1) include goal differential as a measurement (more dominant wins are worth more, pk shootouts are worth less) and 2) make the CL weighted more than the EL. The first one would include complications about quality of opponent (should every goal scored against FC Nordsjaelland count the same as goals scored against Dortmund?), while the second one would be a pretty simple change to make. If I'm completely off on my understanding of the system though, I'd love to have it explained - all I really know is from wikipedia.

rwo power wrote:

Tomwin Lannister wrote:That would be better. But that is not how it works.

Regardless of what that team does in the EL, it doesn't put them in the CL. They could win the entire competition, but they still need to qualify for the CL by doing well enough in their own league. So it's two seperate things.

Well, the more points teams collect in the EL, it affects the 5-year-coefficient for the league and that coefficient determines the number of starters for the CL / EL. So if a league collects many points in the EL it can get another starting place in the CL, thus rewarding one of the better teams in the EL, if all things go well.

Tomwin Lannister wrote:Also it would be better if the EL winners gained the right to play in the CL no matter where they are in their own domestic league.

AFAIK this is in the plans of the UEFA for 2014/15 or so.

This would make EL epic tbh

@stevieg

The CL gives you way more bonus points that you don't get in the EL, so it is already weighted compared to the EL.

You get points for draws (0.5 in the EL quali, 1 in the EL; 1 in the CL quali and 1 in the CL) and wins (1 in the EL quali, 2 in the EL; 2 in the CL quali and 2 in the CL).

You get 4 point for reaching the CL groups (if you are qualified by league position, you get 4 points without even playing); altogether you can get 12 points bonus in the CL. The maximum bonus point you can get in the EL is 3 - that is if you reach the final.

Well that sounds like a fine system to me then. The way people were talking about it, it sounds like the EL was equal to the CL (i.e. Chelsea got equivalent points to Bayern last season).

Here you can see the points the clubs got in the last season:
http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/method4/ccoef2013.html

Bayern earned 33 points, while Chelsea earned 27 points. (They were in the CL groups first, so they took points from that, too).

jibers wrote:How are City in pot 3 still? Makes no sense

How did Dortmund reach the final and are still pot 3?

Very rarely are Europa League groups as difficult as Champions League groups, if ever.

A few years back our (Celtic) group was

Atletico
Udinese
Rennes


Which was very difficult by Europa League standards but still nowhere near the standard you would expect of a Champions League group.

And even the likes of that would only be a one off, with the situation between us and Sion at the time.

windkick wrote:

jibers wrote:How are City in pot 3 still? Makes no sense

How did Dortmund reach the final and are still pot 3?

Well, they got kicked out of CL and EL the years before and didn't compete at all even two years earlier. That doesn't do much for a 5 year coefficient then. But frankly, Dortmund don't really mind which Pot they are in. They take on every opponent they get.

Arsenal , Olympiacos,,


they have to put Olympiacos in our group

rwo power wrote:

windkick wrote:

jibers wrote:How are City in pot 3 still? Makes no sense

How did Dortmund reach the final and are still pot 3?

Well, they got kicked out of CL and EL the years before and didn't compete at all even two years earlier. That doesn't do much for a 5 year coefficient then. But frankly, Dortmund don't really mind which Pot they are in. They take on every opponent they get.

City should be pot 4.