[retired_amclin3]

Originally posted by Richie P:
I see Blokhin taking over at some point at Dynamo, perhaps after the end of Euro 2012, it's a natural choice. But you are right, next couch should be a high profile foreign one as even though Luzhnyi beat Shakhtar, I don't see him as someone who will carry out th overhall as required at the moment.

You never know about the merge in the long term to be honest, it's the next natural step in European football at the moment. There's already concrete talk of a Austria-Swiss league, Belgium-Holland etc.

The real problem is how to attract a manger of really high calibre? The Ukrainian League is just not interesting enough for any decent guy. Money? Maybe. We'll have to wait and see

Can you compare the distances between Austrian and Swiss cities, Belgian and Dutch, and Russian and Ukrainian?

Luch Energia Vladivostok playing Karpaty Lviv' for instance

[retired_anneduck]

The old Soviet league before 1992 was played with those distances! (also including cities like Tbilisi and Minsk). Wouldn't you want to see classic games like Dynamo Kive vs Spartak Moscow again?

[retired_amclin3]

Originally posted by Richie P:
The old Soviet league before 1992 was played with those distances! (also including cities like Tbilisi and Minsk). Wouldn't you want to see classic games like Dynamo Kive vs Spartak Moscow again?

Dynamo Kyiv - Spartak would be fb. The point I'm making is that now things are different. The idea of a merge was discussed a lot here, and most of the people, including club owners like Surkis and Akhmetov stated they don't see a way of it happening.

It concerns TV money, quotas for the European competitions, etc. It would be very interesting, and the quality of players that could be signed if such a league existed would be a lot better, but just not possible. At least in the closest future...

Can you imagine Dynamo, Loko, Zenit, Shakhtar, CSKA, Spartak fighting it out for 3 CL qualifications?

[retired_anneduck]

Which is why it would be so great, you would instantly create perhaps the most competetive overall league in Europe, attendances would shoot up - particularly for the Ukrainian teams, as they play agains Moscow and St Petersburg instead of Tavriya and Zorya

Take the top 4 from Ukraine and the top 12 from Russia, TV money would inevitably be a lot higher and I presume the league would just Russia's place in the UEFA rankings.

[retired_amclin3]

Oh crap

Lothar Matthaus is in Kyiv negotiating something :thdn: T'will be a disaster if he's the new manager :thdn:

Harbouring tiiiny hope it may be somehow connected to Trapattoni, as he's been working with him in Salzburg.

Would take Trap over Matthaus any day. But with names like this mentioned - Surkis can as well just let Luzhnyj stay. We need a high-profile foreigner. High-profile as in "high-profile manager" not "former good player, now crap manager". Dynamo will be destoyed for years if Matthaus is let anywhere near the team

[retired_anneduck]

He did a pretty decent job at Partizan to be fair to him.

[Raptor]

So... the Bulgarian league is over Levski just lost 1-0 at home to CSKA. Far too many points to make up now, especially since there are only a few teams capable of taking points off the big ones.

[retired_anneduck]

Bad week for Eastern Europe so far this week, be interesting to see how many teams survice into the spring in Europe.

[retired_amclin3]

Originally posted by Richie P:
Bad week for Eastern Europe so far this week, be interesting to see how many teams survice into the spring in Europe.

Bad year, not week tbf

[Raptor]

Bad year? Barring total disaster, either Romania or Russia will grab 6th in the end-of-season coefficients, thus securing a 3rd CL spot from the season after next, and the new CL & UEFA Cup setup will help Eastern Europe more than it does the rest.

Looking ONLY at the results of the past couple of months, it doesn't look utterly brilliant, but the basis for a solid long term successful era is there.