Dandal Posted October 27, 2003 Share Posted October 27, 2003 Swedish season finished this weekend. Enköping with Kenny Stamatopoulos lost at home to AIK 0-2. Öster lost away to champions Djurgården 5-2, Atiba playing 90 and scoring the Öster's second goal close to injury time. Enköping and Öster relegated to 1st division. Örebro, Pozniak on yellowcard suspension, defeated Malmö 1-0 at home. And in the 1st division Västerås continued their losing streak, defeated at home by already relegated Sylvia 2-3, Adam Braz playing full match. Since this is the last regular update on canadian players in Sweden for this season, I'll try to sum up: Atiba Hutchinson - 24 matches (23 from start), 6 goals, 1 assist and 3 yellow cards. He very quickly established himself as one of his teams most valuable players, though in a very weak team. He is the canadian success story in Sweden and even if he's under contract with Öster for 2004 and the club has a sound economy it is likely that he'll find another club, in Sweden or abroad, for the next season. Kenny Stamatopoulos - 14 matches (14 from start), was an great signing for Enköping, who desperately needed a good keeper when a loan ran out this summer. He is not one of the top keepers in the premier division, and his stats has probably suffered from playing behind one of the divison's worst defense lines, but has definitely saved his team from several even more embarassing defeats. He is under contract with Enköping until july 2004, but there are rumours that Enköping are willing to sell. I even saw a poster on a swedish fan site referring to a rumour on canadian television?! Oh, I see now where that came from! Funny world, this internet thing . Chris Pozniak - 18 matches (17 from start), 3 yellow cards. Reliable player on the second season for Örebro, one of several good defenders on the team. He has been moved around in the defense line a bit, played both mid, left and right. Might be interpreted as him being usefull at a lot of positions or that the manager just don't know where to put him. His agent says that Chris has an offer from the club to renew the contract and it looks like he'll stay. Nikola Budalic - 5 matches (0 from start, 100 minutes in all). Did not impress the Örebro manager and haven't even made the bench since mid-season, but has got some good words from fans and team mates, who thinks he should have got a real chance to prove himself. Should by all accounts be back in Canada by now. Adam Braz - 26 matches (24 from start), 6 yellow cards. Indispensable part of Västerås' defense. His team had an option for another season, but decided not to use it. The club's chairman explains that the deal was made in the case of promotion to the premier division. The club can't afford to give Braz a premier division wage for 1st division play, so they decided to break the contract. They are however still interested and no doors are closed as they put it. Braz is also reported to be negotiating with Enköping. Good bet is that he'll stay in Sweden. Just a word of caution: all these players have been in second tier teams in Sweden. The swedish league is currently ranked something like 22 in Europe. Atiba is the only one who has attracted interest from quality clubs. Oh, and Jamie Peters left Östers IF this morning after his tryout. The club promise to give an evaluation next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bettermirror Posted October 27, 2003 Share Posted October 27, 2003 is Jamie Peters from British Columbia? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naMessiah Posted October 27, 2003 Share Posted October 27, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Dandal I even saw a poster on a swedish fan site referring to a rumour on canadian television?! Oh, I see now where that came from! Funny world, this internet thing . Yupp, that was me. But we actually have one fan in Canada (Hamilton) , so the news came in from him at the very same time. It was only easier to take a well-written summary from this forum than to write it by myself. This info spread like fire among the supporters and now everyone wonders why we haven't yet heard anything from ESK or anyone else in Sweden. Kenny 'Starfighter' became many supporters favourite after his first game here, and I don't think anyone wants him to leave. We need him when we're back in the highest division in 2005 [8D] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarrek Posted October 27, 2003 Share Posted October 27, 2003 Budalic could have been better off playing in the Ukrainian Premier League. But the standard of play in the Ukrainian league is much higher then in the Swedish league so I don't know if it would have worked out for him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BC supporter Posted October 27, 2003 Share Posted October 27, 2003 Dandal -- I enjoy your posts and the objectivity and insight you bring. I think that "word of caution" you injected was a healthy reminder. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gian-Luca Posted October 27, 2003 Share Posted October 27, 2003 Thanks Dandal for all the info - I take it the 22nd ranking you are referring to includes 2nd tier division of other European countries as separate "leagues"? ie. English 1st Division, Serie B, Bundesliga 2 etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dandal Posted October 27, 2003 Author Share Posted October 27, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Gian-Luca Thanks Dandal for all the info - I take it the 22nd ranking you are referring to includes 2nd tier division of other European countries as separate "leagues"? ie. English 1st Division, Serie B, Bundesliga 2 etc. No, I'm referring to the UEFA coefficient ranking list, that is used to decide the number of spots each country get in Champion's League and UEFA Cup. The list used for the 2003/04 season looks like this: 1 Spain 2 Italy 3 England 4 Germany 5 France 6 Greece 7 Netherlands 8 Turkey 9 Portugal 10 Russia 11 Czech Republic 12 Scotland 13 Ukraine 14 Belgium 15 Austria 16 Switzerland 17 Norway 18 Israel 19 Croatia 20 Poland 21 Denmark 22 Sweden and down to Kazakhstan at 52 (yes, there is a lot of countries in Europe). This year the swedish teams got knocked out of the competitions rather early by Partizan Belgrade, Valencia and Sporting and that will not improve the ranking. If you wonder how Sweden with a ranking like this still usually qualifies to and does fairly well in WC and EC finals, it's because it is rather unusual to find national team players in the domestic league. 50% english premier and then one or two from each of the dutch, german, scottish, danish and swedish leagues is the usual mix. Sweden's low ranking is part of the reason why Östers IF will let Atiba Hutchinson go without too much of a hassle - their chances to sign relatively cheap, talented youngsters improves greatly if they can show that playing for the team is a good career step stone. And bettermirror: somebody else could probably answer you better, but I think Jamie Peters is from Ontario - Atiba is responsible for bringing him over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luis_Rancagua Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Jarrek Budalic could have been better off playing in the Ukrainian Premier League. But the standard of play in the Ukrainian league is much higher then in the Swedish league so I don't know if it would have worked out for him. Jarrek, do you or perhaps JayWay know if Budalic is back in Toronto??? Has he been recently in contact with the Lynx's management???[?] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayWay Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 No, I don't know where he is right now. However, this is one of my concerns about the new coach and management that has taken over the Lynx. I'm not sure how up to date Duncan Wilde is on the Lynx' player connections, but I hope that he is aware of players like Budalic, whom if pursued could find himself back in a Lynx uniform. I hope Wilde's English amitions (from what I hear) don't stop him from taking a look at the players we have at our disposal locally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northern Star Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 Again I have to object! The Swedish "Premier League" Allsvenskan is far more proffessional than many of those ranked to be "better" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gian-Luca Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Dandal No, I'm referring to the UEFA coefficient ranking list, that is used to decide the number of spots each country get in Champion's League and UEFA Cup. The list used for the 2003/04 season looks like this: 1 Spain 2 Italy 3 England 4 Germany 5 France 6 Greece 7 Netherlands 8 Turkey 9 Portugal 10 Russia 11 Czech Republic 12 Scotland 13 Ukraine 14 Belgium 15 Austria 16 Switzerland 17 Norway 18 Israel 19 Croatia 20 Poland 21 Denmark 22 Sweden and down to Kazakhstan at 52 (yes, there is a lot of countries in Europe). This year the swedish teams got knocked out of the competitions rather early by Partizan Belgrade, Valencia and Sporting and that will not improve the ranking. If you wonder how Sweden with a ranking like this still usually qualifies to and does fairly well in WC and EC finals, it's because it is rather unusual to find national team players in the domestic league. 50% english premier and then one or two from each of the dutch, german, scottish, danish and swedish leagues is the usual mix. Sweden's low ranking is part of the reason why Östers IF will let Atiba Hutchinson go without too much of a hassle - their chances to sign relatively cheap, talented youngsters improves greatly if they can show that playing for the team is a good career step stone. And bettermirror: somebody else could probably answer you better, but I think Jamie Peters is from Ontario - Atiba is responsible for bringing him over. Interesting that Norway is ranked ahead of Sweden, though I am assuming this is because they have a team like Rosenborg who are much stronger than the rest of the Norwegian league & tend to do better in UEFA competitions, whereas I suspect the Swedish league might be a little more balanced out, since they don't seem to have one single club like Rosenborg who seem to win every single year - but feel free to correct me on that one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luis_Rancagua Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 Dandal, This is a great report. Keeps us further posted in the latest dealings behind the scene of Swedish football. Cheers, Luis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarrek Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 quote: Interesting that Norway is ranked ahead of Sweden. Not really. Just look at the UEFA cup results. Norway has Rosenborg, Vålerenga and Molde competing in the second round of the UEFA cup. Sweden has 0. Each win or tie for these clubs bumps up the co-efficient ranking for Norway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gian-Luca Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 Sorry, "not really" in what way. Both your post & the rankings Dandal posted would seem to indicate that Norway is ranked ahead of Sweden. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarrek Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 Not Really in this way: "Interesting that Norway is ranked ahead of Sweden" It's not really interesting But you have already come to that conclusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northern Star Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 It's not inreresting, it's absurd! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJT Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Gian-Luca Interesting that Norway is ranked ahead of Sweden, though I am assuming this is because they have a team like Rosenborg who are much stronger than the rest of the Norwegian league & tend to do better in UEFA competitions, whereas I suspect the Swedish league might be a little more balanced out, since they don't seem to have one single club like Rosenborg who seem to win every single year - but feel free to correct me on that one. Just to clarify further, the ranking is completely based on results in the Champions League and UEFA Cup and has nothing to do with domestic results (including how balanced the leagues are). As Dandal said, the ranking is used only to determine how many clubs from each country qualify for European competitions and at what stage they enter these competitions (a separate but related ranking of individual clubs is used to seed them for draws). Thus, while useful as a guide for the relative strength of each domestic league, that isn't really the purpose of the ranking (as opposed to FIFA's national team rankings). Roughly speaking, in any given season each club earns points for results in European matches and each country is assigned a coefficient as an average of all the points earned by its clubs, then all countries are ranked by the sum of the coefficients assigned over each of the past five seasons. Norway is ahead of Sweden in the most recent official ranking almost completely because of Rosenborg's results in Europe (though overall even the other Norwegian clubs have done better than Swedish clubs). As Jarrek mentioned, all Swedish clubs are already out of Europe this season, and in a more up-to-date (but unofficial) ranking that includes every European match played this season so far, Sweden has actually fallen to 24th (even countries like Moldova, Finland, Bosnia and Macedonia have done better than Sweden this season). That's probably more than you wanted to know. But for those stats junkies who want to know more, see the excellent site by Bert Kassies, http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/index.html. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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