A quick look around the European club football scene, and I note FC Luch-Energiya of Vladivostok are potentially now just the two wins away from a place in the playoff round for next seasons Europa League proper: victory away to Rostov on 7th April will put them in the Russian Cup final, and winning that would ensure the team from the home of the Russian Pacific Fleet will be in one of those silly little plastic footballs at UEFA HQ on 8th August. And with CD Nacional de Madeira lying in fifth place in the Portuguese Primeira Liga, and thus on course for European football themselves, that is (according to distancefromto.net/) a potential round trip of 22,039 km (13,694 miles) each: as the crow flies, should they draw each other. The circumference of the Earth is a smidgeon over 40,000 km, so each side would, quite literally, have to travel half way around the world to fulfil the tie. Its perhaps easier to think of it in time zones, the difference 10 hours in summer and 11 in winter. But of course, theres more. You knew I would, and I knew you knew I would. It would surely have to involve one of the DOM-TOM teams that enter the Coupe de France, or so I thought, and Id be right. With the help of freemaptools/tunnel-to-other-side-of-the-earth.htm, I can assert that itd be a team from New Caledonia playing one from the Canary Islands. Now, of the latter, both UD Las Palmas and CD Tenerife have played in the old UEFA Cup, Tenerife were actually beaten semi-finalists in 1997. But no New Caledonian side have ever done very well in the CdF, when AS Magenta defeated USL Dunkerque* on penalties in the 7th round in November 2010, it was the first ever victory in the competition for a side from the island nation - at the 22nd time of asking - and equivalent to qualifying for the 3rd round proper of the FA Cup. Needless to say, they were subsequently eliminated. (*USL Dunkerque were the club a certain Jean-Marc Bosman tried to sign for in 1990. But thats another story.)
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 05:12:26 +0000
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