Champions League Qualifying ,All Chat In Here.

Some Celtic fans on here have been the exact same.

 

Gutted that Dinamo Zagreb got a 98TH MINUTE GOAL TO SNEAK THROUGH! against Ludogorets from Bulgaria. The reason I'm gutted is because it would have resulted in CFR Cluj - making an assumption that we progress against HJK - being seeded for the final qualifying round and therefore us avoiding them. As it stands, I would say our potential 5 opponents for the final round should be:

CFR Cluj (Romanian Champions)
Partizan Belgrade (Serbian Champions)
NK Maribor (Slovenian Champions and former Hunskelpers)
Slask Wroclaw (Polish Champions)
Ironi Kiryat Shmona (Israeli Champions)

Incredibly due to F91 Dudelange's amazing progression against Red Bull Salzburg, it means that they have a decent chance of knocking out NK Maribor therefore we could be looking at merely facing a team from Luxembourg to reach the Champions League group stages for the first time in 4 years...* I hope we beat these Finns.

 

Alright lads. For anyone who is interested, if we get past Helsinki there are 14 possible teams we could face in the Playoff round. Here is a list of them, as well as a percentage of how likely we are to get them. Maribor at the top of the list! Good to see there is only a 2.81% chance of us facing Cluj.


Maribor - 17.01%
Ironi Kiryat Shmona - 16.48%
Wroclaw - 10.52%
Limassol - 10.00%
Molde - 7.25%
Liberec - 7.10%
Debrecen - 6.26%
Helsingborg - 6.20%
Partizan - 4.90%
Sheriff Tiraspol - 4.03%
Neftchi Baku - 3.52%
Cluj - 2.81%
Dudelange - 2.05%
Ekranas - 1.85%
Anderlecht - 0.00%
Basel - 0.00%
BATE - 0.00%
Zagreb - 0.00%

 

Rory we can only face 5 teams if we get into the play off round. (I'll highlight in bold who I think will progress from the respective 3rd qualifying round ties)

NK Maribor (Slovenia)/F91 Dudelange (Luxembourg)
CFR Cluj (Romania)/Slovan Liberec (Czech Republic)
Ironi Kiryat Shmona (Israel)/Neftchi Baku (Azerbaijan)
Partizan Belgrade (Serbia)/AEL Limassol (Cyprus)
Slask Wrolaw (Poland)/Helsinborg (Sweden)

 

Nah that's not right pal. Out of the 10 teams who go through to the playoff round, we can play any of the bottom 5 seeds. And the bottom 5 seeds could be any of the teams in my list depending on who goes thru

 

Here is what I mean mate. if the following teams all get through to the playoff:


Dudelange
Debrecen
Liberec
Ekranas
Wroclaw
Sheriff Tiraspol
Celtic
Molde
Neftchi Baku
Partizan

Then for example we could face Molde cos they would be unseeded (Partizan, debrecen, liberec, ekranas, wroclaw sheriff and celtic all seeded higher). So there are more teams than the ones in your list that we could face.

 

Okay I'll make it clear for you.

Assuming we go through, there are 9 other games in the 3rd qualifying round (In bold is who will almost certainly progress so go with it for this hypothetical situation) :

Basel v Molde
Anderlecht v Ekranas
BATE Borisov v Debrecen
NK Maribor v F91 Dudelange
Dinamo Zagreb v Sheriff Tiraspol
CFR Cluj v Slovan Liberec
Ironi Kiryat Shmona v Neftchi Baku
Partizan Belgrade v AEL Limassol
Slask Wroclaw v Helsinborg

Of these 10 teams that progress, 5 are seeded and 5 are not seeded. This is how it would pan out:

5 Seeded Teams
Basel - 53.4
Anderlecht - 48.5
Celtic - 32.7
BATE Borisov - 29.7
Dinamo Zagreb - 24.8

5 Teams Not Seeded
CFR Cluj - 20.7
Partizan Belgrade - 14.4
NK Maribor - 6.4
Slask Wroclaw - 5.5
Ironi Kiryat Shmona - 4.4

Seemples!

p.s If the point of your confusion is based on unexpected results then I understand you. It's very true that if there are shock results, which we at Celtic should hope for, then a team like CFR Cluj could also become seeded thus we couldn't face them which would be helpful.

 

I'd take any team in bold

Just saw the post above. What we want is for something like Debrecen beating BATE and Sheriff beating Zagreb so that Partizan and Cluj are seeded

 

Id take any of them except Cluj, they come from a League probably stronger than ours, the rest come from weaker Leagues.

 

Wroclaw are the Polish champions. Partizan and Molde are very good teams too.

 

Yeah mate..if the teams you bolded go through, then we could face Cluj, Partizan, Maribor, Slask or Ironi.

But my list does not make any assumptions like that. I have taken into account the probability of each team going through.

Trust me mate, I am a statistical mathematician for a sports bookmaking firm - I do this for a living

Maribor - 17.01%
Ironi Kiryat Shmona - 16.48%
Wroclaw - 10.52%
Limassol - 10.00%
Molde - 7.25%
Liberec - 7.10%
Debrecen - 6.26%
Helsingborg - 6.20%
Partizan - 4.90%
Sheriff Tiraspol - 4.03%
Neftchi Baku - 3.52%
Cluj - 2.81%
Dudelange - 2.05%
Ekranas - 1.85%
Anderlecht - 0.00%
Basel - 0.00%
BATE - 0.00%
Zagreb - 0.00%

 

I love me stats, we're a dying breed.

 

Also as an aside, you say those teams you put in bold will "almost certainly" go through.

Slask vs Helsingborg is practically 50/50 at the bookies.
Partizan vs AEL is literally 50/50.

Even teams like Zagreb and Cluj are only about 65% favourites to go through.

 

How did you get 17.01% for Maribor and 2.05% for Dudelange when no matter which one goes through we'll have a 20% chance of facing them, not 19.06% ?
Maybe I made a basic error but there you go
Also, why do you think Maribor are such strong favourites to knock out Dudelange when Dudelange knocked out a really good team in Red Bull Salzburg?

 

I get Maribor being strong favourites from here:

http://www.oddschecker.com/football/champions-league/maribor-v-dudelange/to-qualify

That puts them at just under 90% likely to qualify, and Dudelange at just over 10%.

And yeah whichever team goes through, we will have a 20% chance of facing them. But until we know which team is going through, we have to reduce that 20% by a factor. The reason the percentages for opposing teams don't always add up to 20% is because in some scenarios teams will be seeded or unseeded depending on who else gets through

 

Ah yeah I get you. Thanks.
By the way, I'll be having some of whatever price will be doing the rounds for Dudelange to get through if it's in or around 8/1 !

 

No matter how well F91 Dudelange have done so far, if they knock out NK Maribor and we end up facing them in the play off round and then proceed to lose to a team from Luxembourg with a 1.5 co-efficient and fail to reach the group stages of the Champions League then it would be an absolutely embarrassment for us.

 

Yeah I agree. I just don't fancy getting a team who have already knocked out RB Salzburg!

 

It was only on away goals anyway, the Luxxies got lucky

 

Purely for the selfish purposes of having a good away-day trip, I want Maribor, Debrecen or Limassol.