[Earlier this summer, I reached out to the dormant Commentists to ask if they were

1. Still around, and
2. Interested in commenting or posting.

This post is the result of those labours. If you want to join in, hit me up. Otherwise, enjoy.]

Good morning? Afternoon?

Whatever. Fucking time zones.

I’m Commentist Walkingthedog.

It’s Thursday night. I am drunk, my team got eliminated but I feel inspired to write a text about the new European football competition. That only means something to Spurs haters because Tottenham became the first English team to lose a game in all of the European competitions – I am talking about the European Conference League. It is the third tier European competition after the Champions League and the Europa League.

The idea behind it was that the biggest leagues have the strongest teams so smaller countries cannot compete, and that playing in Europe should not end in August. Look – I found a video that explains it:

Many were skeptical at first, but it seems it works since we have really cool teams in the mix, and it is you, dear Door Flies Open reader can find your own to support .

So I guess I need to present the teams, I will try to do that as objectively or as subjectively as possible, but if it is a mix of the two, deal with it. On a side note, my team, Rijeka, lost to PAOK so I am dealing with it by having a beer or two, and some whiskey…

The draw is being held Friday at 13:30 CEST (weird time, usually it’s on the hour) which is I guess 7:30 am, Eastern time. The teams are divided into four pots, depending on their coefficient (the CC and number) which they get either by playing well in Europe for a couple of years or riding on the tailcoats of the other teams from the same country – you can find more on that here.

Pot 1

• Roma CC: 90.000
  • coached this year by “The Special One”, Jose Mourinho, who is trying his best to become a fan favourite of the fans by saying all the right words and chants. They are the favourites, at least until teams from the Europa League come in the competition. A team for every Chad that once saw a wolf and said “I bet that milk is fine af”
• Tottenham Hotspur CC: 88.000
  • lost 3:0 to Dinamo Zagreb last year, hard to take serious and it is hard to expect that they will take this competition seriously. Their only motivation is not to be eliminated by funny team, so that they don’t get mocked by other EPL fan bases
• Basel CC: 49.000
  • a team for all those hipster Barcelona fans, since the founder of FC Barcelona also founded FC Basel and used the colour scheme for both. Basel is also Roger Federer’s team, so do what you want with that info.
• Slavia Prague CC: 43.500
  • Prague has beer spas and in the movie Hostel from 2005, the Slovak hosts seem to be fans of the club (since they have a flag of theirs on the wall), so if you like the thought of butchering college backpackers, this might be a club for you
• Copenhagen CC: 43.500
  • lost to Rijeka in a spectacular fashion last year with one of the most Buttfumblesque goals of all time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivfTNE9WDGo), they are all right in my book
• Gent CC: 26.500
  • Eliminated Rijeka two years ago, but then spent a lot of money on one of the players, just to loan him back to Rijeka. Great idea. Also as a team from Belgium, they use a native american chief as their mascot, so fans from Washington, Cleveland and Miami, get ready to cheer.
• AZ CC: 21.500
  • murdered Rijeka at home last year, and then lost at the picturesque stadium on the Adriatic sea (a new Rijeka reference). One of the few teams that managed to snatch a dutch championship outside of the big three (Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord). Jeff Bazos fans should cheer for them.
• LASK CC: 21.000
  • what can I say about LASK that has not been said before, well according to Wikipedia “LASK was founded on 7 August 1908. In 1965, the club became the first team outside Vienna to win the Austrian football championship. This is also its only championship to date.” plus they come from Linz and you know that they say about Linz ” Thirteen malls can be found in Linz, three of which are situated in the city centre.” People that like Google might like this team because ” Gugl Stadium, is home to the LASK (Linzer Athletik Sport Klub), which is claimed to be the third oldest football club in Austria”. I am trying my best here, like did you know – Bon Jovi performed in Linz on 15 May 2006 during their Have a Nice Day Tour.

————————————————-

Pot 2

• Feyenoord CC: 21.000
  • one of the legendary European clubs, winners of the European Cup, plus they lost to Rijeka so a big plus. A team of the hardworking dock workers from around the globe, so if you are a tough guy that likes to boogie this is the team for you
• Qarabağ CC: 21.000
  • a Caucasian club, mild and uneventful. Bernie Bros United
• Maccabi Tel Aviv CC: 20.500
  • the New York Yankees/Dallas Cowboys/LA Lakers/Toronto Maple Leafs of teams from Israel
• PAOK CC: 20.000
  • the team that eliminated Rijeka so I am a bit bitter. A team from Thessaloniki formed by the refugees from Constantinople, which means they will get equally excited if you ask them “if they are a turkish club?” or “when should North and South Macedonia unite so that Skopje has a port?”. A team for all the Beta males who think it is cool that the club’s president draws a gun when talking to a referee.
• Rennes CC: 19.000
  • Not PAOK, so already better, the only team from France, but being from Brittany, true to their celtic roots. If you like Dropkick Murphys and the Pougues (since there are no other “celtic” clubs) – this is the team for you
• Partizan CC: 18.000
  • the founder of modern day Croatia had a dream that all Cancun sorority girls should be fans of a bad boy team that makes them look skinny. So he founded “Football club Partyzone” where the main colours were black and white vertical stripes, and nothing of interest has happened to the Balkan peninsula since
• CFR Cluj CC: 16.500
  • a perfect club for a conflicted hipster. It is a team from Rumania (a hipster plus), that won the last few chapionships (hipster minus), that got eliminated twice to make it into the Conference League (hipster plus), but was the first one to eliminate a smaller team on the elimination of the away-goal-rule (hipster minus). But if you like train, they are a team for you
• Zorya Luhansk CC: 15.000
  • did you like the Seattle Supersonics but thought they played too close to the canadian border and thought they should play somewhere more safe than Zorya is a team for you! Or on the other hand, as they say in Luhansk “Fuck the F-150, we were born tough”

————————————————-

Pot 3

• Union Berlin CC: 14.714
  • do you like correcting libertarians about communism? Do you think teams should not use taxpayer money to fund stadiums, but also that the owners should not pay for the construction – then you might be a Union Berlin supporter, one of the guys that built the stadium in their own free time.
• CSKA Sofia CC: 8.000
  • the comunist army club from Bulgaria, “the Karen of the Balkans”
• Vitesse CC: 7.840
  • the “Milhouse” of this competition, did not win the league, did not play against Rijeka, did nothing bad apart from following the other clubs in playing in Europe. If you believe you have a chance with your best friend’s sister, then this is the club for you
• Slovan Bratislava CC: 7.500
  • a team for the bitter fans of the rivals teams that would love to form its own league and win outright, your Chicago Cubs, Montreal Canadiens, NJ Jets, Sacramento Kings (this is highly debatable but I drank 10 beer to down the sorrow and started with whiskey so I don’t care
• Jablonec CC: 7.000
  • so they destroyed Zilina from Slovakia, which destroyed a team from Kazakhstan, which destroyed Hadyuk Split (intentionally misspelled). Jablonec It is a local centre for education, and is known for its glass and jewelry production but most importantly Fuck Hajduk, so go Jablonec.
• Alashkert CC: 6.500
  • You are Jim and you want to fuck Nadia, and you will get your chance but don’t come on the world stage too fast (american pie reference)
• Flora CC: 6.250
  • You like rats, rats like you, then Fauna is the team for you… But Fauna doesn’t play european football, ok, ok, then take the first team around – Flora
    Kairat CC: 6.000 – cheap Borat joke (really not proud of it)

————————————————-

Pot 4

To steal a quote from “The Warriors”, some of these teams “are so far down they’re not even on the map. Real low class.”

• Lincoln Red Imps CC: 5.750
  • the only Iberian representative, but it doesn’t do the club justice. They are from Gibraltar, and seem to exist & be included simply to piss off Spain, which brings me great joy.
• Randers CC: 5.575
  • you are a delta male and you don’t care about anything, life is difficult enough
• Omonia CC: 5.550
  • Who.
• Anorthosis Famagusta CC: 5.550
  • Cares.
• HJK CC: 5.500
  • Fuck Helsinki, as a person that studied in Rovaniemi, and worked with Santa Claus, fuck Helsinki. Plus they lost twice to Dinamo.
• Maccabi Haifa CC: 4.875
  • “You do you, man,believe in yourself and great things will happen ;)” because I really don’t know.what to say about them. They feel like the Yankees from a smaller town. But this might be because I drank again.
• Bodø/Glimt CC: 4.200
  • Pittsburgh fans on steroids… black-gold team with a huge toothbrush tradition,
• Mura CC: 3.000
  • Sigma male club, because you don’t care you just win. Typical Slovenian jokes are that the country is small, the women are hot and the men are gay, yet while they laugh at you for being gay, you film a foursome with their wife, mom and sister, but you don’t show the film to anyone.

Well, they held the draw before Beerguy figured out what to do with my post, so here’s how the group draw turned out:

These will produce some real outstanding games, so I would humbly request that the Footy Commentists & post writers include this group in the occasional commentary. The fans of these teams are no less ferocious than those higher up if only from a fan-brawl perspective, because it’s their first/last time in any form of European tournament. Since they rarely see better teams, their passions likely plateau here. Plus, there’s the excellent chance that Tottenham lays a giant fucking egg. And who doesn’t want to see that?

Hey Walking – this post was fucking outstanding. Thanks again for contributing.