This season the CL qualifying round had the following ties

Loko. Moscow	Tirol
Shakhtar	Bor. Dortmund
Wisla	Barcelona
København	Lazio
Inter Bratislava	Rosenborg
Galatasaray	Levski
Halmstad	Anderlecht
Rangers	Fenerbahçe
Slavia Praha	Panathinaikos
Hajduk Split	Mallorca
Ajax	Celtic
Crvena Zvezda	Bay. Leverkusen
Haka	Liverpool
Parma	Lille
Porto	Grasshoppers
Steaua	Dyn. Kyiv

I'd be more than happy if we drew the Finnish champions, but you'd like to avoid the Spanish and German 3rds and 4ths

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Answers

appealing propositions

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

For the next season of CL, the Finnish champions qualifying are Tampere United. The mere name is enough to strike fear in the hearts of any man -- which is odd, because they are utter crap.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Do you think there is any kind of seeding to keep the teams entering at the 3rd round apart? just wondering cos there were no HUGE ties were there? Parma v Lille was probably the biggest cos Ajax played a crap little team....what round did Celtic join for qualifying? 3rd?

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Is there any seeding? ie would we play the Spaniards/ Germans/Italians or be kept apart?

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

You'd want to avoid anything from France as well. Luckily for you their 7th place team can't qualify...;o0

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Do not forget Tampere -- the Manchester of Finland -- and their canny footballing lot!

Actually I'm kidding.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

but I'm praying you get Galatasaray or Celtic.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

btw, how did your lot get on in their last European game, ML3?

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

I think it is seeded, both by country to avoid a country losing a team, and by this mystical performance coefficient which rates the country over the previous 5 years results.

There are 18 teams that go straight into the last qualifying round joined by 14 winners from earlier qualifying round.

The 18 are made up of

3rd and 4th from Spain, Italy and England,

3rd from Germany, France and Holland

runners up from Turkey, Greece and Russia

champions from Portugal, Czechs, Belgium, Ukraine, Austria and Norway

The champions of Scotland, Switzerland, Croatia, Sweden, Poland, Denmark, Romania, Yugo, Hungary, Slovakia, Israel have two qualifying games, all other countires even more.

Source ..... http://www.uefa.com/uefa/News/Kind=32768/newsId=13582.html

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

last years draw for 1st round matches was done on 18/6, 2nd round draw was done on 19/07 and 3rd round draw was done on 02/08....

Still a few months before I can be thinking of making plans then! :)

I suppose i'd better start prepping the missus now....

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

It was a hefty away win Terry so don't take the p1ss. It was Waterloo apparently.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

I've not heard it called that for a long time :)

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Terry - Sporting Lisbon CWC 1973, lost 3-2 on aggregate. Not bad for a second division side.

When was the last time the Toon got into Europe through actually winning something?

ML³

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

>>When was the last time the Toon got into Europe through actually winning something?

Who cares, we're THERE!!!

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

oops!

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

It's been long-anticipated, eagerly-awaited, and yes, finally it has raised it's ugly, morlock-like ashen head after a season of unrewarding toil - the Green-Eyed Monster from Co. Durham!

Be prepared for many more churlish, snarling appearances from this bi- faced monstrosity from the desolate Land of Lord Lambton. ;o{)

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

..but you have to admit lads & lasses, the cupboard is still bare after more than 30 years.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

I'm sure who ever we eventually lose to will be rubbish and not as good as Sunderland.

We really have to think of the CL as playing against the top 4 in the Premiership, that is the standard we'll be playing against. Not a nice thought as we managed to beat Man U at home, Arse away and lost all the rest, and lost both to Chelsea.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

I can tell you the Swedish champions is a nice draw. They have started this season with 2 losses and a tie yesterday. The goalie is not good, very young and inexperinced. Im sure they will improve but Im pretty sure we'll run them over in two games. Fingers crossed...

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Maybe the green eyed monster could lead an invasion of this board under made up names and be really abusive eh?

Not that you lot would EVER sink to that level.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

You're really Stirring it up now marra!

ML³

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Howay lads...be a little bit happy for us...show just a little bit of good grace...put yourself in our position, you'd be over the moon wouldn't you? let us have that....

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

I am remarkably unmoved by your success.

If you win the champs league ,then so be it.If you go out in the qualifiers then so be it.

Although I am tired at the minute and cannot be bothered to generate any bitternes-give me a couple of weeks.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

you have a big drinking bet though don't you ?

and more importantly how was the game in Marley Hill, think I scored against their junior chool in the famous 1971-72 campaign

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

just had a look at the sire suggested by .com boys http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/index.html brilliant stuff if you're a sad statto

you can find out where each team was ranked in Europe each season, we peaked in 96 with 20th, Sunderland aren't shown as it only goes back 25 years

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Uh oh, Softie will be gone for days... ;-)

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Serious question - for ML3. Did Sunderland win a tie in 1973 or did they go out in the first round? Just interest - although I must admit it sounds like I'm taking the p1ss. (Actually I did try to check this on the web once but I don't think the data has been converted into electronic form from the papyrus sheets yet - lol)

Just to show my fairmindedness let me ask you another. I'm sure you're aware that Sunderland inflicted NUFC's heaviest home defeat of all time on them in 1908 1-9. That was in December and we had to wait till the end of April to get our compensation for that - the league title. So the question is could you bear the same outcome at SOL - watching your lads hammered 1-9 by the Mags only to get the title 5 months later? Could you bear the intervening 5 months and would the title take away the pain?

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Jonno they beat beat Vasas Budapest (?) 2-0 away and then 1-0 at home, 22762 the crowd I believe.

They then beat Sporting Lisbon 2-1 at home, dunno crowd, and lost 2-0 away.

Didn't enjoy the whole episode so decided never to bother again

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Not sure but I thought we qualified for the INTER CITY FAIRS CUP by WINNING it the previous year ML2 or something

and I'm sure we started off the season with a draw at Chelsea Macbeth so don't know what you mean lost twice?

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Yep that was the answer I gave above Bob. We qualified for the 69-70 Fairs Cup by winning the previous one.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Sorry Jonno, missed that

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

sorry I had the Chelseas cup match in my head, only room for one set of results at a time

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002

Jonno, Macbeth answered your first question correctly.

wrt the second, it's very hard to give an objective answer since in 1908, silverware in the NE was not so scarce as now. I'd take the league championship at any cost right now. But if we'd already won it a couple of times recently, as Newcastle had done in 1908, I'd take runners up and avoid the legacy of the hammering.

ML³

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002