90+5 minute winner for TNS this afternoon to take three points back up the A483.
TNS go three points clear at the top of the Adran Premier with a perfect record.
No matter how many times I read the line "The reanimated remote controlled corpse of Klaus Barbie will bring experience and passion" it still makes me laugh
EDIT this is from 2013 but evergreen
Was up in Wrexham for both of Wrexham's Champions League games.
IMO we've taken - at best - a small step forwards in terms of European performance. Much was made of Cardiff not scoring a goal in their previous three campaigns, but they played FC Twente in 2024 who reached the group stages, and Athlone in 2025 who also performed well that year. Riga are probably a similar standard to Athlone and looked way ahead of us.
Pyunik were probably one of the weakest first round opponents we could have drawn and Riga/Glentoran on paper seemed to be winnable too. |It feels like we've moved from the bottom to second/third quartile of UWCL first round entrants and need to improve considerably to reach the second round.
There was plenty to encourage too - we had a really good go at Riga in the first half before we ran out of steam and they started to dominate. But we need to be more composed playing against a press - Pyunik's press caused us all sorts of problems for 15 minutes or so, and Cardiff and Swansea also caused us lots of problems last season by pressing high too. Riga doubled up on Faye Knox which really nullified any attacking outlets which led to us essentially just passing the ball to their midfielders every time we had the ball in defence.
If we win the league next season (and I don't think we can take that for granted) - I think we need to think about how we prepare and build match fitness for European games. I don't think a couple of friendlies really cut it in terms of prep as we were clearly out on our feet by half-time of the second match.
Some people talk about the quality of the welsh league being a problem - but there's not really any particular reason that countries like Latvia (pop. 1.83m), Kosovo (pop. 1.585m), Albania (2.75m), Slovenia (2.11m), Cyprus (pop. 1.28m), Lithuania (pop. 2.8m), Luxembourg (pop. 660k) etc should be miles ahead of us in terms of the quality of their club sides - they all have similar challenges in terms of competitiveness - and many of them invest much less in their women's football infrastructure than Wales does.
There's definitely lessons to learn. I know this was our first campaign in Europe ever - but i think the outcome was more of a disappointment than a success for the club given the sums invested.
probably mutter something cryptic about being sure to stock up on bog roll in February 2020 too.
Very confused by association coefficient points for the champions league.
https://www.uefa.com/nationalassociations/uefarankings/womenscountry/?year=2027
The rules say 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw, half that for qualifying rounds, but they also say for single legged matches it's 3 points for a win, 2 for a draw, 1 for a defeat (and half for qualifying rounds).
Riga won 2 and have 3 points for Latvia, which suggests the latter schema is in play. Wrexham won 1 lost 1 and have 2 points for Wales which would also make sense (1.5+0.5).
But Neftci of Azerbaijan received 1 point having drawn the semi and lost the final and Buducnost received the same having drawn the semi and lost the third place game which doesn't fit with either schema. Third place teams that won their final outright seem to get 1 point.
Flora Tallinn lost a semi and didn't have a minor final and got 0 points. Pyunik lost both games and got 0 points.
Anyone able to shed any light?
Another Adran league club professionalising its setup
Glentoran currently have a league fixture scheduled the night before their UWCL first round final/third place match - after having to play games on back to back days last week.
Wrexham making some big moves ahead of their champions league debut in two weeks time.
1QRSF Pyunik (ARM)
1QRF Glentoran (NIR) OR Riga (LAT)
2QRSF HB Koge (DEN)
2QRF Gintra (LIT) OR Hearts (SCO)
I propose:
Watford and Wolves allowed to carry on as is. For now at least.