Who’s looking forward to being England’s inaugural entrants into this lower tier Europa League style competition? Anyone excited for a big night out at next years final in front of 20K fans in the Air Albania Stadium?
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SO who qualifies for it. I’ll tell you who…
Associations 1–5 each have one team qualify.
Associations 6–15 and 51–55 each have two teams qualify.
Associations 16–50 (except Liechtenstein) each have three teams qualify.
20 teams eliminated from the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League and 26 teams eliminated from the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League are dumped into the Europa Conference League.
184 teams to enter.
Associations ranked 15 through 50 have 3 teams each. That’s 3 teams from Malta! 3 from Luxembourg! 3 teams from the Estonia! Glory days!!
Qualification for the UECL is given to the team who wins the League Cup. Man, if the tasty prize money of 50K for winning the League Cup isn’t enough to whet your whistle, well now you can play on a Thursday night against the 4rd best team from Kazakhstan.
Exciting.
Where does that leave the English teams. Well it’s Spurs vs Man City in the league cup. If City win, and they are massive favorites as we know, then the UECL place goes to the league. Same deal as the FA Cup. And with the top 4 in the premier league still in the FA cup, it seems reasonable to suggest that the most likely outcome will be 7th place in the League qualifies for this malarkey.
So who wants it?
Not me! I can’t really see Liverpool in the top 4 at present. Especially now Hendo is seemingly out for the season. Champions League or even the regular big boy Europa League for me. At least the latter stages of the Europa can conjure up some decent matchups. Definitely not this bargain bin competition.
I reckon the present top 3 are all odds on for CL qualification. Then we have WHU, Chelsea, Everton, Villa, Spurs and Leeds.
Anyone want the ignominy of being the inaugural English representatives?
Battle for UEFA Europa Conference League
posted on 24/2/21
wonder how much this will cost clubs, does the prize money outweigh all the flights etc ?english clubs could handle it but what about a crap team from slovenia or wherever
posted on 24/2/21
comment by Cinciwolf---A top 20 brand in world football (U11551)
posted 9 minutes ago
Im not even sure wolves want any part of this shambles
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Maybe it'll be a purer form of football. No VAR, no goal line tech,pitches like swamps, ostly middle aged bald fat men, Thursday night glamour tie vs Larne. I wonder if they still have all the barbed wire around the stadium.
Sounds awesome!
posted on 24/2/21
comment by Taki Minamino (U20650)
posted 4 minutes ago
wonder how much this will cost clubs, does the prize money outweigh all the flights etc ?english clubs could handle it but what about a crap team from slovenia or wherever
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Seems no prize money has been announced just yet. In the Europa regualr you get about 200k for participating in the preliminary rounds, so your average slovenia entrant will likely make more money than all of the teams in the League Cup put together.
Probably be a good competition for some of the smaller teams.
posted on 24/2/21
comment by Manfrombelmonty (U1705)
posted 13 minutes ago
comment by Cinciwolf---A top 20 brand in world football (U11551)
posted 9 minutes ago
Im not even sure wolves want any part of this shambles
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Maybe it'll be a purer form of football. No VAR, no goal line tech,pitches like swamps, ostly middle aged bald fat men, Thursday night glamour tie vs Larne. I wonder if they still have all the barbed wire around the stadium.
Sounds awesome!
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Now you put it like that.....we're in!!
posted on 24/2/21
Absolute joke of a comp...the fackin Euromick is bad enough, despite us winning it twice.
Do the poor teams in the Euromick drop into this shambles after the group stages, like the CL
Doesn't bear thinking about....Spurs might like it though
posted on 24/2/21
comment by Sheriff JW Pepper (U1007)
posted 4 minutes ago
Absolute joke of a comp...the fackin Euromick is bad enough, despite us winning it twice.
Do the poor teams in the Euromick drop into this shambles after the group stages, like the CL
Doesn't bear thinking about....Spurs might like it though
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Oh, you better believe it includes teams dumped in from various other comps.
1st Qualifying Round si just a stright up knock out of 72 teams from the 30th - 55th ranled leagues.
2nd Q we start to see CL preliminary losers plopped in. They're joined by the Moldovan cup winners and the like.
Then it moves onto trams eliminated in qulifying for the europa. Then when the group stage starts they dump another bunch losing Europa qualifiers.
And finally, just as you think you're in the clear....knockout rounds and the the 3rd placed europa lot come along for the ride. But they have an extra special preliminary knockout round to go throug before they actually get to the knock out round.
Seems lovely.
posted on 24/2/21
Probably get someone like channel 5 showing it
posted on 24/2/21
I think the idea is a good one if it is aimed at lesser nations teams having some kind of carrot to chase but when they start adding loser after loser from the other comps it really becomes a joke.
I mean you could quite easily see a big side or two dumped into it if they have a poor CL tournament then what is the incentive for the Armenian 4th placed side when they are going to be pummeled by an off form Valencia.
posted on 24/2/21
Absolutely a tournament for the smaller teams is good for them. But what kind of competition are we looking at if we have Liverpool, Villareal, Lazio, Dortmund, all in a competition with them. I'm not watching Liverpools u23s playing the Andoran cup winners. I may as well put my 6 year old in goal and start powering half volleys at him.
Those big league teams are only included for the $$$ surely.
posted on 24/2/21
comment by Cinciwolf---A top 20 brand in world football (U11551)
posted 34 minutes ago
I think the idea is a good one if it is aimed at lesser nations teams having some kind of carrot to chase but when they start adding loser after loser from the other comps it really becomes a joke.
I mean you could quite easily see a big side or two dumped into it if they have a poor CL tournament then what is the incentive for the Armenian 4th placed side when they are going to be pummeled by an off form Valencia.
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Technically speaking the reason teams go in the Europa in the first place is because they failed to get a CL place.
5th in the league, 3rd in a CL group, same thing really.