The9

To the shock of none. Pot 4 looks like a backpacker's dream.

Unless I've missed one you'd need Shakhtar and Saint Etienne to lose to get Young Boys into Pot 2.

Currently: Pot 1 Schalke (GER) coefficient 96.035 Zenit (RUS) 93.216 Manchester United (ENG) 82.256 Shakhtar Donetsk (UKR) 81.976 Athletic Club Bilbao (ESP) 75.142 Olympiacos (GRE) 70.940 [leading 2-1 against Arouca Extra Time being played] Villarreal (ESP) 60.142 Ajax (NED) 58.112 Internazionale (ITA) 58.087 Fiorentina (ITA) 57.087 Anderlecht (BEL) 54.000 Viktoria Plzeň (CZE) 44.585 ----------------------------- Pot 2 if Olympiacos win AZ Alkmaar (NED) 43.612 ----------------------------- Pot 2 if Arouca win Braga (POR) 43.116 Red Bull Salzburg (AUT) 42.520 Roma (ITA) 41.587 Fenerbahçe (TUR) 40.920 Sparta Prague (CZE) 40.585 PAOK (GRE) 37.440 Steaua București (ROU) 36.576 Genk (BEL) 36.000 APOEL (CYP) 35.935 Standard Liège (BEL) 27.500 Saint-Étienne (FRA) 26.049 --------------------------------- Pot 3 if Olympiacos win Gent (BEL) 25.000 --------------------------------- Pot 3 if Arouca win Young Boys (SUI) 24.755 Krasnodar (RUS) 24.216 Rapid Vienna (AUT) 23.520 [leading 4-2 at home 56 mins] Slovan Liberec (CZE) 22.085 Celta Vigo (ESP) 21.142 [Maccabi Tel-Aviv (ISR) 20.225 or Hajduk Split] drawing 3-3 Extra Time being played Feyenoord (NED) 19.112 Austria Vienna (AUT) 19.020 Mainz (GER) 18.035 FC Zürich (SUI) 17.755 Southampton (ENG) 16.756 -------------------------------------Pot 4 if Olympiacos and Maccabi win Panathinaikos (GRE) 14.940 -------------------------------------Pot 4 if Arouca and Maccabi OR Olympiacos and Hajduk win Sassuolo (ITA) 14.087 -------------------------------------Pot 4 if Arouca and Hajduk win Qarabağ (AZE) 13.475 Astana (KAZ) 12.575 Nice (FRA) 12.049 Zorya Luhansk (UKR) 11.976 Astra Giurgiu (ROU) 11.076 [Hajduk Split (CRO) 10.775 or Maccabi Tel-Aviv] drawing 3-3 Extra Time being played Konyaspor (TUR) 6.920 Osmanlıspor (TUR) 6.920 Qäbälä (AZE) 5.225 Hapoel Beer-Sheva (ISR) 4.725 Beitar Jerusalem (ISR) 4.225 Dundalk (IRL) 2.590

Yup. Now all we need are 12 other upsets and... never mind. At least I can stop updating the scores now. Onto the Pot breakdown.

No baton charges though, and the police were very good natured about it. It absolutely didn't impact on my enjoyment of the whole thing.

Anyway, here it is again... Ah, it was Qabala I was thinking of.

Ha, actually it's because I just got home and I'm trying to find the stuff I shared this morning on the thread with the wife moaning at me for putting the West Ham game on.

Not any more.

Qarabag being 3-1 up in the 96th minute is one game nearer, anyway.

Didn't happen to us in Arnhem or Herning.

Also, finally found a website with live AND aggregate scores: http://www.espnfc.us/uefa-europa-league/2310/scores

Hello from outside the cinema. Just had a quick look and everything is as it was, apart from SonderjyskE leading at Sparta Prague which gives us a little more wiggle room in Pot 3.

Frankly the side we had on the pitch at the end of last season should be comfortably one of the top 12 teams currently in this competition and easily good enough to win their group - they lost to Midtjylland this time last year nevertheless - but in terms of rankings we're probably nearer this lot than where we actually are. 37 Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk Ukr 3.0500 12.9000 11.5666 21.0000 6.9600 55.476 38 Anderlecht Bel 14.0200 9.3000 6.2800 11.9200 12.4800 54.000 39 Rubin Kazan Rus 9.9500 19.9500 13.0832 1.9332 7.3000 52.216 40 Sporting CP Lisbon Por 22.3666 6.3500 1.9832 11.8166 9.1000 51.616 41 CSKA Moscow Rus 17.9500 3.4500 8.0832 9.9332 9.3000 48.716 42 Olympique Marseille Fra 21.1000 6.3500 5.7000 2.1832 11.2166 46.549 43 Viktoria Plzen Cze 10.0500 15.7000 12.6000 1.7750 4.4600 44.585 44 AZ Alkmaar Ned 18.7200 2.3428 17.1832 1.2166 4.1500 43.612 45 Málaga CF Esp 4.1714 25.5428 4.6000 4.0428 4.7856 43.142 46 Sporting Braga Por 12.3666 8.3500 3.4832 1.8166 17.1000 43.116 47 Club Brugge Bel 10.0200 4.3000 2.2800 20.9200 5.4800 43.000 48 FC Salzburg Aut 8.4250 1.4500 18.5600 11.8250 2.2600 42.52

There's also a lot to be said for not drawing clubs in countries where you're getting baton charged for the crime of being an English football supporter, and that's pretty much as likely as the size of the contingent you take to a match - so bigger grounds could just lead to less enjoyment as you are more likely to get herded around.

So they pre-draw for pairings (last year they drew "Italy 1" (I think it was Napoli), placed "Italy 2" in the opposite half of the groups, drew 3 (avoiding 1), and placed 4 (avoiding 2). I think. They specifically said that teams from the same nation would be kept apart using "red" and "blue" halves of the draw, which works fine for 2 clubs but not so well for 3 or 4. The halves of the draw thing is specifically about kick off times, because they don't want 3 from one country on tv at the same time and then no-one in the other slot. So they ensure one 6pm and one 8:05pm kick off because the red groups and their blue equivalents have different kick off times. I'm beginning to understand why they don't release the fixtures immediately now. Also, I'm taking that as a compliment.

For the club it's about making money/winning trophies* (delete depending on level of cynicism, though winning trophies usually = making money anyway). For fans it's about enjoying the experience, for which winning (inc trophies) is a significant part, but not everything. We pretty much all had a better time in Arnhem than Herning, but that was as much because of the weather and that Arnhem made an effort to make it a bit of a party, than the result itself. As for "testing the team", why play more difficult matches than you have to? Did people get narky about the FA Cup Final in 2003 because we had an easy run? No they did not. They couldn't care less, and if we'd had to play Sheffield United in the final instead (like the Skates only to play effing Cardiff, FFS) then it wouldn't have reduced the enjoyment of winning the thing one bit. Plus if we progress in the competition we ARE going to play a better standard of opposition anyway, why not save it until it is unavoidable? Plus you can have as much fun going to poky holes as you can at larger grounds, there's even an argument that smaller grounds are better. I absolutely could not care less if we draw a big name or not, and given that there's not much difference in the standard or size of teams in Pot 3 and Pot 4 I don't really think it makes much difference. I also can't say I care much whether we lose to a name people have heard of or some poky no-mark team, after all we did that last year in a ground where we only got 550 tickets, we still had a bloody great time around it. Also, we can't play West Ham even if they get through tonight (or Man U), until the last 16.

Interesting indeed. I'm still mostly hoping we don't get a Russian team at all though. I have a spreadsheet at the ready with the fixtures in already as soon as we find out the position of the teams! Why the hell that wouldn't apply to Astana too given the temperature chart earlier in the thread... ...oh, and for anyone thinking they were right up to speed on the EL draw, don't forget that as of 2014 Ukrainian and Russian teams can't be drawn together either - though thanks to the "nation rule" and the insistence on jumping teams from groups A-F to G-L, and the possibility of a team not-yet drawn having to go into a specific one of the remaining groups thus forcing lots of others across to the other half of the draw, there's no easy way of working out who goes where anyway. I can see this place going into meltdown as we get "placed" in the other half of the draw to Man U when the group next to them is full of awesome trips and easy opponents... Though having said all that, I still haven't worked out how they keep same-nation teams apart if there's more than two of them, do they pair them based on tv-sexiness or something? There were 4 italian clubs in the draw last season but they were still placing one and then drawing the next one in the same half as the other one... In which case we'll be a floater compared to the Man U-West Ham tv sexy axis... For those unaware, this actually is what having a conversation with me is like... stevegrant will confirm.

Thanks, weird what you can deduce about someone's nationality based on a spreadsheet.

I agree, we should call everything Checkatrade instead. I'm about to embark on a lengthy rant about the word "Premiership" too, but at least commentators know not to use it even if for some reason footballers don't.

Completely disagree re: False 9 and tekkers being from the same group of people. False 9 is a legit footballing coaching term used by boring tactics types, whilst "tekkers" is a load of old toss corruption of actual words extracted from the tiny bit of a footballer's brain used for talking, and then regurgitated endlessly by Soccer AM helmets who think doing fancy keep-ups is a useful football skill and have posters of Mr Wu-wannabes in their smelly bedrooms. See also "top bin" and "worldy". And people wearing coloured boots.

It's most often used for a striker who doesn't play in the front line, and drops deep. The "false" is the idea that they would appear to be playing the "number 9" position, but they're actually playing deeper, in attacking midfield. It's been going on for ages, but it wasn't so obvious as when teams played with two strikers, because one of them would still (arguably) be in the "number 9" role, i.e. furthest forward striker. Sometimes it's also used for midfielders playing more advanced in a formation without any real strikers (eg a 4-6-0) but I'm not having that. Here's a definition: http://thefalse9.com/2013/09/football-tactics-for-beginnersthe-false.html FWIW my opinion on the other term is that anyone who doesn't know what a "number 10" role is shouldn't really be sharing their "wisdom" on a football forum.

Seeing as it was a phrase in the 80s (and probably beforehand), I'm going to say "no".

And even after playing them in a Cup for 3 years in a row we still get "Cyrstal Palace" in the thread title.

BT Sport 2 from 12-1pm and Eurosport 1 from 12-1230pm in the UK. Plus UEFA.com, probably here: http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/season=2017/draws/index.html