Another highly creditable result by Derry City in the first round of the UEFA Cup gave a further boost to supporters of domestic football in Ireland, writes Michael O'Reilly.
Perhaps the most pleasing aspect of Derry City’s recent 0-0 draw with Paris St Germain at The Brandywell was the disappointment felt afterwards that they won’t take a cushion to the Parc des Princes. It’s easy to forget that clubs in this country haven’t always had such lofty ambitions.
Just six short years have passed since the nation’s top club (St Patrick's Athletic) crashed out of the Champions League 10-0 on aggregate to their Moldovan counterparts. Much has changed in the intervening years. Whatever your opinion on the merits of the summer season, with attendances increasingly on the decline, there’s little doubt that the quality of play on the field has risen sharply.
A sea change in attitude from the nation’s top club sides has led to a transformation in European prospects that few could have predicted. A professional attitude and fading inferiority complex have enhanced performances and Irish sides expect to get results nowadays where, in the past, the occasion and gate receipts were often foremost in the mindset.
UEFA’s co-efficient points system is the bedrock of the club competitions. It decides how many clubs qualify for Europe from each domestic league and their seeding position once there. Points are accumulated for draws or wins achieved in the Champions League and UEFA Cup, and are divided by the number of domestic clubs competing on those stages.
The rankings are then computed by taking the sum of five co-efficients garnered over the past five years to give an aggregate figure. Intertoto Cup results are effectively ignored for ranking purposes.
The eircom League representatives began the 2006/07 European campaign in 40th place of the 52 European nations. The performances and results since then have taken the league’s standing to new heights across the continent. All four representatives progressed past the opening round.
While Shelbourne kick-started the ranking elevation two years ago with their CL exploits, Derry City, Drogheda United and Cork City, to varying degrees, have carried the torch with aplomb this season. Put simply, the 2006/07 campaign to date has been a wonderful one for the league, having jumped to 35th in the rankings, quite a leap in just a single season.
As it stands, the likelihood is that the eircom League will finish higher this season than many leagues with serious European pedigree, among them the top-flights of Sweden, Poland and Austria. The short-term challenge is to consolidate these results over the next five to ten years, which would increase our representation in the competitions, and give us much coveted seeded status.
The eircom League clubs' success story this season is compounded by the fact that all of their ties were played as the unseeded team, with the Irish side being the unfancied one on each occasion. The collated results for the Champions League and UEFA Cup are P13 W6 D4 L3. To put this into perspective, the French league sides (who have been seeded throughout) have an almost identical record so far of P14 W6 D6 L2.
The eircom League has more than matched the results of the French clubs so far. To those who wouldn’t open the curtains to watch a domestic tie in this country, this should offer a timely reminder that the talent and vision is there. If only the game could garner a modicum of support from the armchair football fan on this island, imagine what could be achieved?
