UEFA Europa Conference League 2022/23 Play-Off Round

[Firnen]

UECL Pots could be like this after tonight:

Pot 1: Villareal, AZ Alkmaar, Gent, Partizan, West Ham, Cluj, Rapid Wien, Fiorentina
Pot 2: Antwerp, Beer Sheva, Apollon, Nice, Anderlecht, Vidi, WAC, CSKA Sofia
Pot 3: Zalgiris, Austria Wien, Hearts, Shamrock Rovers, Linfield, Zrinjski, Sivasspor, Dnipro
Pot 4: Lech Poznan, Silkeborg, Slovacko, Viking, Djurgarden, Pyunik, Rakow, Ballkani

Do you know what's crazy? Antwerp is the highest unseeded team in qR4.
Fiorentina only won 2-1
Rapid Wien drew 1-1 away
Cluj drew 0-0 away
West Ham and Villareal won by 2 goals

Unseedeed in qR4 and perhaps pot 1 in GS. Probably not (if they qualify), Maccabi still won at home and Slavia Praha only lost by one goal.

West Ham and Villareal will not fail, but I agree that the other 3 are far from settled, I just made some assumptions to have a general image.

[ultra2013]

It surprise me when I saw Köln defeated (they draw against away at Leipzig last weekend), but that early red card reminded me of Union losing to Slavia in a similar manner last season. Cups can be tricky, Köln were also eliminated by a 2. Bundesliga in Pokal. Difficult task, but I guess Köln will turn it around next Thursday.

[wannabeontop]

It surprise me when I saw Köln defeated (they draw against away at Leipzig last weekend), but that early red card reminded me of Union losing to Slavia in a similar manner last season. Cups can be tricky, Köln were also eliminated by a 2. Bundesliga in Pokal. Difficult task, but I guess Köln will turn it around next Thursday.

Köln's coach is def a psycho case what's up with him? His neurotic behaviour takes a toll on his team, you could see it when they seemed to be honestly surprised by that straight red lol.

Is there var in the ecl po?

[Juliusz]

First legs attendances

Köln - Fehérvár 44,000
West Ham - Viborg 30,230
FCSB - Viking 30,134
Maccabi Tel-Aviv - Nice 26,871
Djurgården - APOEL 19,122
Young Boys - Anderlecht 18,363
Fiorentina - Twente 16,674
CSKA Sofia - Basel 15,364
Villarreal - Hajduk Split 11,275
AZ Alkmaar - Gil Vicente 11,211
Universitatea Craiova - Hapoel Beer-Sheva 10,127
Lech - Diddeleng 9,150
Shkupi - Ballkani 8,430
Slovácko - AIK 6,032
Partizan - Hamrun 5,502
Raków - Slavia Praha 5,500
Zrinjski - Slovan Bratislava 5,100
Molde - Wolfsberger AC 4,761
RFS - Linfield 4,710
Maribor - CFR Cluj 4,500
Vaduz - Rapid Wien 3,497
İstanbul Başakşehir - Antwerp 3,450

[air]

It surprise me when I saw Köln defeated (they draw against away at Leipzig last weekend), but that early red card reminded me of Union losing to Slavia in a similar manner last season. Cups can be tricky, Köln were also eliminated by a 2. Bundesliga in Pokal. Difficult task, but I guess Köln will turn it around next Thursday.

Köln's coach is def a psycho case what's up with him? His neurotic behaviour takes a toll on his team, you could see it when they seemed to be honestly surprised by that straight red lol.

Is there var in the ecl po?

No VAR, which is ridiculous to me.

[Todor]

So they beat up their own fans?

Yes, defenseless young teen fans. What a shame. This could be spelling the end for a united Sector G (the ultras stand) with normal fans who are not part of any fraction choosing the other stands from now on.

This faction of ultras should be expelled from the club. That is a line that should never be crossed.

This faction was instrumental when Litex were moved to Sofia and renamed to CSKA-Sofia. The owner of Litex visited the leader of the faction who was in the prison at the time to get advice on how to replace the old club with the new one. They made sure there were no fans in the stadium unhappy with this decision. I guess it wasn't free of charge. Now the management feel they don't need this faction anymore and stopped their money, but the money of the club is the main business of these 'fans' and they have no intention of letting their grip on the ultras sector of the stadium.
It's not a problem of CSKA in all its reincarnations only, but a long-standing problem of Levski as well, where the club has been held hostage to another similar faction of paid fans that has long extorted it. Every time the club tries to remove them, they cause trouble in the stands costing the club an enormous amount of money. So the club pays them to keep the order in the stands, allows them to sell merchandise of the club etc.

[air]

Upset of the night? It was at least 5 bigger upsets: Vaduz, CSKA, Zrinski, YB, Maccabi are much bigger for me. And still the biggest upset of the night is Raków winning only by one goal after so many chances...

4 of these teams got their results at home. Only Anderlecht (vs YB) was away and that's not that big an upset.
A German team losing at home to a Hungarian is by far the biggest.

I was playing chess with my team and when I read the one German got sent off and Vidi equalized I stopped playing and started watching right away. What a result and what great goals. I just hope Vidi can finish the job next week. Köln coach doesn't seem to be able to control his emotions which affects his team greatly.

Fehérvár is the upset of the night. Fehérvár is in kind of a "ManUtd shape", I guessed some 4-0-alike result before the match.

And I would still sign if the tie would be decided by PS...

[Greyn]

Yes, defenseless young teen fans. What a shame. This could be spelling the end for a united Sector G (the ultras stand) with normal fans who are not part of any fraction choosing the other stands from now on.

This faction of ultras should be expelled from the club. That is a line that should never be crossed.

This faction was instrumental when Litex were moved to Sofia and renamed to CSKA-Sofia. The owner of Litex visited the leader of the faction who was in the prison at the time to get advice on how to replace the old club with the new one. They made sure there were no fans in the stadium unhappy with this decision. I guess it wasn't free of charge. Now the management feel they don't need this faction anymore and stopped their money, but the money of the club is the main business of these 'fans' and they have no intention of letting their grip on the ultras sector of the stadium.
It's not a problem of CSKA in all its reincarnations only, but a long-standing problem of Levski as well, where the club has been held hostage to another similar faction of paid fans that has long extorted it. Every time the club tries to remove them, they cause trouble in the stands costing the club an enormous amount of money. So the club pays them to keep the order in the stands, allows them to sell merchandise of the club etc.

So basically it looks same like in Poland. This is my post after Lechia - Akademija Pandev match and riots that occured at the stadium.

This is another example what are the real intentions of these "elite" and organised groups of "fans". They call themselves "most fanatic" groups of "supporters" who "love" the club more than ordinary fans. The true is that their main interest is making money on the club. This time it was about hiring "their" people as security guards in the stadium pub, but they also want to make money from the gyms inside the stadiums, as well as selling club souvenirs with owning, for example, rights to the club crests/logos, which normally should belong only to the club. Another thing are of course fines which club has to pay for their, let's say, improper behaviour. This applies to both Domestic and European matches and result in huge amounts of money which could be spent for transfers or other club needs. I think it is also worth to mention that these people are usually regular criminals, sentenced by the court for drag dealing, violence, forced tributes, etc.

If a club owner decides to tell them "stop, not anymore" they bully him that there will be no organised support during the matches and also ordinary fans will stop attending the stadium, because (somehow) this small group of bandits (who would not beat a coelenterate in an IQ tests battle) has an influence on them and normal people listen them.

They call themselves "kumaci" (the savvy). "Kumaci" in Polish are people who are smarter than the rest and understand everything in this world in a better way. Of course reality regarding these people is exactly the opposite, most of them had hard time with getting promotion to the next grade in the primary school.

[V Yo-Yo]

So basically it looks same like in Poland. This is my post after Lechia - Akademija Pandev match and riots that occured at the stadium.

This is another example what are the real intentions of these "elite" and organised groups of "fans". They call themselves "most fanatic" groups of "supporters" who "love" the club more than ordinary fans. The true is that their main interest is making money on the club. This time it was about hiring "their" people as security guards in the stadium pub, but they also want to make money from the gyms inside the stadiums, as well as selling club souvenirs with owning, for example, rights to the club crests/logos, which normally should belong only to the club. Another thing are of course fines which club has to pay for their, let's say, improper behaviour. This applies to both Domestic and European matches and result in huge amounts of money which could be spent for transfers or other club needs. I think it is also worth to mention that these people are usually regular criminals, sentenced by the court for drag dealing, violence, forced tributes, etc.

If a club owner decides to tell them "stop, not anymore" they bully him that there will be no organised support during the matches and also ordinary fans will stop attending the stadium, because (somehow) this small group of bandits (who would not beat a coelenterate in an IQ tests battle) has an influence on them and normal people listen them.

Exactly the same situation here, spot on.

I must say ever since this organized group stopped attending games there is less toxicity in the stands and more wholesomeness and genuine support by the "normal" fans all around despite attendance numbers falling.

But that changed last night when they thought a specific stand is only for themselves, they came in at half time to kick anyone who dared come and sing in that stand as they wanted to be clear the entire stand was "protesting".

[air]

So basically it looks same like in Poland. This is my post after Lechia - Akademija Pandev match and riots that occured at the stadium.

This is another example what are the real intentions of these "elite" and organised groups of "fans". They call themselves "most fanatic" groups of "supporters" who "love" the club more than ordinary fans. The true is that their main interest is making money on the club. This time it was about hiring "their" people as security guards in the stadium pub, but they also want to make money from the gyms inside the stadiums, as well as selling club souvenirs with owning, for example, rights to the club crests/logos, which normally should belong only to the club. Another thing are of course fines which club has to pay for their, let's say, improper behaviour. This applies to both Domestic and European matches and result in huge amounts of money which could be spent for transfers or other club needs. I think it is also worth to mention that these people are usually regular criminals, sentenced by the court for drag dealing, violence, forced tributes, etc.

If a club owner decides to tell them "stop, not anymore" they bully him that there will be no organised support during the matches and also ordinary fans will stop attending the stadium, because (somehow) this small group of bandits (who would not beat a coelenterate in an IQ tests battle) has an influence on them and normal people listen them.

Exactly the same situation here, spot on.

I must say ever since this organized group stopped attending games there is less toxicity in the stands and more wholesomeness and genuine support by the "normal" fans all around despite attendance numbers falling.

But that changed last night when they thought a specific stand is only for themselves, they came in at half time to kick anyone who dared come and sing in that stand as they wanted to be clear the entire stand was "protesting".

These events remind me to Ferencváros hools insider hiearchy fights between 1995-2005. Just for the record: it ended with a new president, with political support, who made gestures to all kind of supporter sides (regular, family, ultra, hool etc.) and made the needed deals with everyone. They didn't want to "erase" hools, but wanted to make controlled supporting, close and frequent communication with the leaders of hardcore fan groups, and in exchange the majority of them could enter to matches without giving fingerprint and so (like other supporters). And it worked.

And btw, one more similarity: if I am not mistaken, CSKA is building a Ferencváros style stadium.

[Greyn]

Exactly the same situation here, spot on.

I must say ever since this organized group stopped attending games there is less toxicity in the stands and more wholesomeness and genuine support by the "normal" fans all around despite attendance numbers falling.

But that changed last night when they thought a specific stand is only for themselves, they came in at half time to kick anyone who dared come and sing in that stand as they wanted to be clear the entire stand was "protesting".

They are the club parasites, nothing more.

That's why I don't expect that some foreign investor will take over Legia, Lech, Wisła etc. soon and invest big sums of money in the club. I believe that biggest Polish clubs would be attractive for some of them, they surely have a potential to be, but because of these groups of people, it seems unlikely at least for now. There are many clubs which are better options for an investment in Europe where you don't have to deal with this social pathology.

[quelhar]

Shockingly, Slavia is still regarded as a favourite to go through to the ECL GS according to czech betting site Tipsport (1.75 Slavia, 1.90 Rakow)...

[air]

Exactly the same situation here, spot on.

I must say ever since this organized group stopped attending games there is less toxicity in the stands and more wholesomeness and genuine support by the "normal" fans all around despite attendance numbers falling.

But that changed last night when they thought a specific stand is only for themselves, they came in at half time to kick anyone who dared come and sing in that stand as they wanted to be clear the entire stand was "protesting".

They are the club parasites, nothing more.

That's why I don't expect that some foreign investor will take over Legia, Lech, Wisła etc. soon and invest big sums of money in the club. I believe that biggest Polish clubs would be attractive for some of them, they surely have a potential to be, but because of these groups of people, it seems unlikely at least for now. There are many clubs which are better options for an investment in Europe where you don't have to deal with this social pathology.

From an other point of view, at least big Polish clubs remain in Polish hands. And in a way, decision suvereignity remains at Poles.

I am jealous for the overwhelmingly Czech squad of big Czech clubs, but for the Chinese ownership of Slavia, I would have never been jealous, for example. Yours is only what you own.

[Greyn]

From an other point of view, at least big Polish clubs remain in Polish hands. And in a way, decision suvereignity remains at Poles.

I am jealous for the overwhelmingly Czech squad of big Czech clubs, but for the Chinese ownership of Slavia, I would have never been jealous, for example. Yours is only what you own.

The problem is that the richest Polish people are not willing to invest in Polish football as well. Why should they? Mioduski (Legia owner) is insulted with every occasion at the stadium and outside the stadium. I am pretty sure he has enough, but there is no volunteer who would pay reasonable price for his club shares.

Same applies for Lech Poznań. Yesterday there were banners at the stadium with a message to the club owner "it's time to surrender", what simply means - "leave the club".

[air]

From an other point of view, at least big Polish clubs remain in Polish hands. And in a way, decision suvereignity remains at Poles.

I am jealous for the overwhelmingly Czech squad of big Czech clubs, but for the Chinese ownership of Slavia, I would have never been jealous, for example. Yours is only what you own.

The problem is that the richest Polish people are not willing to invest in Polish football as well. Why should they? Mioduski (Legia owner) is insulted with every occasion at the stadium and outside the stadium. I am pretty sure he has enough, but there is no volunteer who would pay reasonable price for his club shares.

Same applies for Lech Poznań. Yesterday there were banners at the stadium with a message to the club owner "it's time to surrender", what simply means - "leave the club".

In Hungary, politically appointed club presidents solved this issue. This of course needed a strong democratic support by the voters, which is not clear for me for Poland. To simplify, clubs are financed by taxpayers.

Less and less local independent businessmen invest into football in Europe, as a trend (of course there are exceptions always). Having that in mind, I still think that politics to involve is a less painful way, compared to foreign owners or non-competitive clubs.