EUROPHILE


EUFA at their meeting recently have confirmed the information given in an earlier programme of the changes in next seasons Champions League.

The League of Wales Champions start their European campaign on Wednesday the 14th of July with the second leg a week later on the 21st of July.
The next qualifying round takes place on the 28th of July and 4th August with the third and final qualifying round taking place on the 11th and 25th of August.

I will in future programmes give more details of the European competitions.

The Cup Winners Cup will no longer take place while the Eufa Cup is increased to 121 clubs.
We in Wales will now have two entrants in this competition i.e. the runners up and Welsh Cup Winners.
86 clubs will be in the only qualifying round which will take place on the 10th and 24th of August.

I wiil again in future programmes give details of those already qualified and how the competition will be organised by UEFA.

The information not at hand is the dates of the draws. When known the information will be included in the programme.

A certain newspaper once again mocks the efforts of our clubs this season .This I assume is due to a lack of knowledge of the European game which as been shown in the past.

Dynamo Kyiv

This team of course needs no introduction to our supporters after playing them for the last two seasons.
The good news for Welsh football is that our Champions cannot play them in the first qualifying round.
There is a problem however unless they win the Champions League this season the will be in the second qualifying round.
This is due to the increase in teams from the higher coefficients and the fact UEFA have decided to use the seedings in place at the end of last season.

The current standings in the Ukrainian League are:


1) Dynamo Kiev            P15        PTS   36
2) Shaktor Donetsk        P15        PTS   33
3) Karparty Lviv          P15        PTS   29

Haka

After beating Bangor City they lost in the next round to Greek side Panionios of Athens.
They however then went on to win the Finnish League and are one of the teams that the League of Wales Champions could play.
Finnish teams are improving as can be seen by the efforts of HJK Helsinki in this seasons Champions League.

The end of Season standings were:


1)  Haka               P27    W13    D9    L5        F46   A31      PTS48
2)  VPS Vaasa          P27    W12    D9    L6        F42   A27      PTS45
3)  PK35               P27    W11    D11   L5        F36   A24      PTS44

HJK Helsinki finished fourth while our former managers team Finnpa finished 9 out of ten.

Wisla Krakow

The result Newtown achieved against Wisla at home showed what can be done against a very good side.
After playing Newtown Wisla won home and away against Trabzonspor of Turkey then in the first round proper they beat Maribor Branik of Slovenia ,again home and away before losing only 3-2 in aggregate to the crack Italian side Parma.

Wisla are at present top of the Polish league, as shown below.
They are however banned by UEFA from playing in European competitions next season.
This was due to an incident in the home game against Parma when one of their players was hit by an object.To compound this one of the Wisla players threw the object back into the crowd. He is now banned for one game.

The leading Polish positions are:


1) Wisla Krakow   P15      W13      D1    L1     F36     A11    PTS 40
2) Lech Poznan    P15      W10      D0    L5     F33     A16    PTS 30
3) Legia Warsaw   P15       W8      D4     L3    F21     A14    PTS 28
They are now at the half way mid season break

LKS Lodz who lost to Manchester United are lying in 12th place with 16 points from 15 games.

You can see from the above we did not lose to mugs

Tim Johnson

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This page edited by the Yellow Dragon, 1998.
This articled firt published in the Barry Town matchday magazine, v Inter Cabletel 26.12.1998.

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