Yesterday Uefa announced a series of revisions to the Champions League from the start of season 2018-19.
The headline initiative, which was trailed in the media for some weeks, is that the top four qualifying nations are guaranteed four entrants in the group stage. At the moment the top three nations are guaranteed three entrants each, with a fourth team entering the tournament at the play-off round. The fourth placed nation is guaranteed two in the groups, with one more team in the play-off round.
In effect, all this means is that Italy gets one more team in the tournament, while the likes of Tottenham don’t need to go through the anxiety of a play of qualifying, even if the outcome is pretty much inevitable.
How teams earn coefficient points, and how they earn money are both changing, with Celtic standing to gain more than any other team in Europe. At the moment part of each teams’ coefficient is made up of an average of their nations’ entrants over the previous five years.
This penalises Celtic more than any other team in Europe. No other country has one team in the Champions League group stage, while all other teams failed to qualify for all group stages over the previous five years. From 2018 coefficients will no longer be dependent on the performance of other teams from your national association.
There’s also a Lisbon Lions Dividend. Teams who have won the European Cup will earn four monetary coefficient points. If they have won the Champions League within the previous five years, the bonus will be 12 points, and if they were European champions earlier in the Champions League era, the bonus will be 8 points.
As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Lisbon, it is astonishing that the achievement of those men is still bringing benefits to Celtic in ways no one could have dreamt of back then. I’ve said it before, but it’s impossible to overestimate what they did for Celtic. Without them, we would have been as relevant to Scottish football as Hibs.
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Good morning from a hot and sunny Las Americas ! Off to watch local side CD Marino at 12 , so a few beers on terracing for me HH !
Bletchley Park boys on overtime today.
Yesterday’s ingenious post ending ‘fu’, then new post beginning ‘ck’ has Colossus stumped.
Today’s ‘f@@k’ will just have to wait.
Bournesoupreceipe.
I can’t agree it’s a great article.
Whilst what Paul has written is true, it’s unbalanced, in my opinion.
There is a big negative, in the revision of the rules, and that is the Champions route, which we enter, has had the places reduced from 5 to 4 a 20% reduction. Only 2 out of 5 top seeds qualified from that route this season, of which obviously, we were one. Qualifying has just become a lot tougher for Celtic, if we qualify I accept there is more chance of us being in pot 3 but we have to qualify first. Make no mistake these new rules are mainly for the benefit of one nation, Italy, and in particular the Milan clubs. I for one don’t think it’s good that rules have been changed which benefit the bigger nations again.
Hail Hail
“We will push Celtic to the very last day of the season in February”
Barry MacKay
From Bletchleypark.org
“The first operational break into Enigma came around the 23 January 1940, when the team working under Dilly Knox, with the mathematicians John Jeffreys, Peter Twinn and Alan Turing, unravelled the German Army administrative key that became known at Bletchley Park as ‘The Green’. ”
The wearing down of the Green.
leicester only had 22% possession at home to man city yesterday yet scored 4 goals
though if you’re looking for some philosophical discussion of that stat then im too hungover for any if that
Just speaking to one at work there,
” We’ve turned the corner”
Ayrshire is Green and White
Turkeybhoy 10.27am
Cheers, but pinch of salt this end, the whole point of the blog is strangers posting their Celtic stuff, I think when the team is doing well some posts are directed at changing the tone of the blog, stupidly I then don’t follow my own instincts and get drawn in, how about this for an idea…..don’t like the songs don’t sing them, for the youngsters on Friday night who have paid their cash let them do as they please (within the law :-) not sure why so many feel the need to force their opinion on others…….live and let live ……. or is it do as I say not as I done
Aaaaarrgh!
‘er outdoors fails late fitness test. Dreaded Sunday shop falls to me.
Ok, it’s a break for you, but I’ve missed the quiet window of opportunity pre booze sale hours.
Need to be phone, earphones and Spotify* to get through it.
Any good shopping music??
* other music download sites also available.
Paul67 picked a Celtic positive from the new rules, he writes what he likes ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Celtic are trapped in the money league and its all our own fault, for being so good.
A fourth Italian club, the relaxation for EPL clubs, and tinkering with the Champions route is all part and parcel of the way European Cup football, was destroyed by UEFA’s financial greed.
We will have to be content with being champions every year and qualifying thus, I also like the notion of winning the Europa and qualifying for CL that way, as it shouldn’t be beyond us to go one better than Seville.
HH
** above post was for JIMMYNOT **
Ah, got one!
Squeeze. ‘ Pulling Muesli from a shelf”.
Another world record for Sevco? – taking four and a half years to ‘turn a corner.’
Great!
Oasis. – “Lidl by Lidl”.
Turkeybhoy
Tenuous link but Samsunspor just scored to get my (Sunday morning) coupon up :-)
Three!
Ya basta! (as they say en español)
I’ll put them on a loop.
Mary Duff – “Till the Waitrose blooms again”.
Bournesouprecipe.
I can’t understand why France and Russia haven’t complained more.
Just now the top 4 can fluctuate, granted it hasn’t for a while, but France and Russia have been closing up on Italy in fourth. Which would have allowed them potentially 4 slots. Now it’s a closed shop. UEFA have had the audacity to say the top 4 nations could change, if others obtain more seeding points, that’s almost artimetically impossible.
Anyway my main point was The SMS could quite easily have highlighted it as a bad news story due to 20% reduction in places for The Champions Route.
It’s totally chicken and egg, the four bigger nations are complaining about group stages being non competitive, yet are reducing the amount of places that may help clubs strengthen to challenge more.
Hail Hail
Flowerpot men – Tesco to San Francisco
Long Sleeved Hoops – £10 off today only
Ming
4!
Hippy hippy hooray!
Rangers FC 2nd in a league fish in a barrel….
No bad for a ‘team’ that we where told 4 / 5 years ago that, Cellic would never play again.
And, talking about play again….
It’s Cellic supporters and, the rest of Scottish fitba who’ve been ‘played’ like fiddles by all the fiddlers at the top table in Scottish fitba.
Ye see, for as long as Cellic has ‘any’ tentative links to a certain Mr Fergus McCann…..Cellic will always be joined at the hip to Rangers FC…the present Cellic supporters song-book merely rubber stamps the SMSM narrative that, Cellic and Rangers fans are two different sides of the same coin…sadly.
Celtic FC are a stand alone club….that was one of Lawwell’s best ever squirrels.
If yer no fly ye’ll no get by….
If yer no wide ye’ll get flung in the Clyde…
If yer no shady ye’ll be shafted….
If yer too trusting ye’ll end up busking….
If ye’ve no goat a Jungle, yer heading for a tumble…
If ye sit at the back of the bus, the PLC will slap yer puss….
If ye really love the Cellic, let go of the relics….
You’ll Never Walk Alone in the Jungle that backed the struggle.
….zzzzzz……..
Beat boy… early Squeeze stuff … love it!!! D&T were great together…. cool for Cats… ArgyBargy, and EastbSide Story … all classics…. You have great taste in music pal! :)
Anyone wanting a laugh in WestLondon today? The West London CSC , average age very old, are taking on the Borussia Dortmund London Supporters Club today in a full blown 11 a side match. My lhad will be appearing as the youngest member of the Celtic crew, heaven help him.
As for good shopping music? Lost in supermarket by the Clash? Or to get/keep you in the holiday spirit… Nat Coles version of The Christmas song?
Speaking of music …. reading the autobiography of Robbie Robertson (formerly of the Band, and Bob Dylan’s main guitar guy when he went electric). One of the best music books I have read in sometime. Highly recommended gift for any music lover on your Xmas list.
My sis interviewed him m recently and said he was very good nteresting and a really nice man, too! I gre up worshipping a Dylan and the Band, so nice to hear that some of our heros are nice Che guys.
Mike in Toronto
Tilbrook was playing in Glasgow a week or two ago, and in a small restaurant in a business park in Airdrie too.
I couldn’t get tickets last time for the restaurant gig, and missed it again this year.
Such an intimate place to hear those great songs being played, too!
Like the fish there, gutted!
For me, ‘Vicky Verky’ from ‘Argy Bargy’ is the perfect pop song, and embodies everything great about Squeeze.
Some Squeeze coming up next Friday night on here, ok?
“Awright, ah’m gooooooin’!!”.
Best hoy,
Shame you didn’t see that. It would have been fun.
Saw them on the argybargy tour… great!
My favourite squeeze songs? Tough one! Cool for cats is a classic, but Piccadilly might be my favourite. classic!
Best hoy = beatbhoy ,… sorry!
Turkeybhoy,
We can have a difference of opinion without any animosity. That’s what a blog is for. In my opinion all posters viewpoints are equally valid.
If I disagree with a post, I will say so. Doesn’t mean I am correct, or a poster is wrong, it’s just opinions.
And for the record ,Gerryfaethebrig is a poster I like and respect . However , that doesn’t mean I will not challenge him. ( metaphorically speaking)
HH.
Greenpinata 12.40
Spot on…… I wouldn’t expect anything less :-)
Good listening while shopping.
Any of the hai hail media podcasts.
Stats anomoly.
14 games played. 9 away 5home.
Averaging 4goals a game at home. 2 and a bit away.
Wait till we balance up our fixtures.
I got a feeling we are going to have a ten goal victory soon.
0-0 draw for Eibar at home, not great but not bad. Right time to start lunch.
The problem for Eufa is that if you look across all the 8 groups of this year’s CL — 96 games in total — it did not generate very much in the way of exciting edge of your seat football.
Very pedestrian, very predictable, very low key.
Unlucky with some of the match ups — the Ryanair Winter Sale joke was just too cutting to be really funny. However the overall results show that the competition is dying in its current form.
Points won across all the 8 groups:
First / Second in the group = 192 points.
Third / Fourth in the group = 66 points.
Gap between third and fourth = 37points.
Total points by 4th placed sides = 18 points.
Seven teams didn’t manage to win a game.
Two teams didn’t manage to gain a point.
We need something better.
Split the competition into 2 parts?
Big boys love in — 4 or 6 top leagues do their own thing.
Real EC competition with Champions only from the rest of EUFA.
Not sure if it could support 8 groups but it would be better than the last 3 months.
Atmosphere — HBS vs the Barca fan boy / hackneyed love in?
The new rules for the CL starting in season 17/18 only make a rigged and corrupt competition all the more so. The fact that we get a few co-efficiency points thrown our way doesn’t change that fact. The only way this will change for the better is by fans in the clubs outside the big four countries getting together and organising a boycott of the CL and those companies that sponsor it. The big clubs from the Italy, Germany, Spain and England need us more than we need them. Personally, I can’t see that happening anytime soon so I’ll find something else to do on CL match days/nights. Anyone who buys a ticket for CL matches forfeits the right to moan about how unfair it is.
Madmitch- Hamiltontim is yer man for ticket info….
Beatbhoy- shopping related playlist to pass the time….
Rock Lobster
Good Vibratiins (Ann Summers :-)
Maybelline
Chantilly Lace
Green Onions
Tequilla
Bkueberry Hill
Heard it through the Grapevine
Wekcome to the Jungle
Saturday Night Fish Fry
Dixie Chicken
Freebird
American Pie
Tutti Frutti
Where gave all the flowers gone
Sunday Bloody Sunday
——–
Shopping done before yiu know it! :-)