England and Spain on brink of claiming fifth Champions League spots next season
England will once again have a fifth team in next season’s Champions League barring a freakish set of results over the remaining rounds of competition this year.
Losing four of their six Champions League teams from this year’s tournament at the last-16 stage raised fears that fifth place could be lost, but all three teams making it through in the two Thursday night competitions leaves England almost home and dry.
Spain and Portugal are the only countries who can now catch England, and only in a freakish scenario where Portuguese clubs pick up every remaining point available and English clubs lose all their remaining games could England drop to third. It really is as close now as one draw in any game for their five remaining teams being enough.
Spain, who still have six of their eight initial participants actively involved, are almost certain to take the second bonus spot as they did for this season.
There will once again be 36 rather than 32 teams in next season’s Champions League, and two of those extra places will once again be awarded to the leagues who have been deemed to have performed best in Europe this season.
In six of the last eight seasons, England would have claimed one of those two spots. The first time it actually mattered, they didn’t; England trailed behind Germany and Italy, with Newcastle and Man United’s pre-Christmas exits from Europe a key early factor before a series of disappointments across all three competitions in the knockout stages.
It proved to be quite a significant sliding doors moment; had England secured a fifth spot that season it would have gone to Tottenham, who instead went off and won the Europa League.
They were thus the sixth Premier League entrant this season, with Newcastle’s prize for finishing fifth upgraded to a Champions League spot with England – unsurprisingly – coming out miles ahead at the top of the overall rankings on the back of winning two of the three trophies as well as having a losing finalist and semi-finalist.
The system for working out the co-efficient rating that decides which leagues come out on top is (relatively) simple.
Every win in Europe – whether Champions, Europa or Conference League – is worth two points to your country’s tally, and every draw one. There are then assorted bonus points to be awarded based on finishing positions in the bumper final league tables as well as further points for reaching different knockout rounds.
All teams competing in the Champions League phase are awarded six points just for being there – a huge early boost to England’s tally with two thirds of their nine teams in that competition. You get an additional 0.25 points for finishing 24th in the final table, with an extra 0.25 points on offer for each position from there up. So 23rd gets 0.5, 22nd gets 0.75 and so on all the way up to six points for the table-toppers. The Europa League has no bonus points for competing, but again offers 0.25 points to the team that ends 24th and six to the team finishing first on the same sliding scale as the Champions League.
Just to keep us all on our toes, it’s slightly different again in the Conference. Here you get 0.125 points for 24th, and an extra 0.125 points for each position up to ninth, and then 0.25 points for each extra position you can climb in the top eight.
Long story short, the table-toppers in the Champions League get 12 points altogether, Europa League toppers six points, and Conference League four.
Champions League teams then get an extra 1.5 points for each knockout round they participate in (last 16, quarter-final, semi-final, final), Europa League teams one point for each round, and Conference League teams 0.5 points. So while England already have a huge advantage, the weighting of their clubs – six in the Champions League, three elsewhere – means the knockout rounds are actually where the lead should grow.
There are no bonus points on offer for reaching the playoff round that teams finishing between ninth and 24th in each competition have to deal with, but you do still get result points.
So if you qualify for, say, the Champions League quarter-final by winning both legs of your last-16 clash, you collect 5.5 points for your country’s tally: two for each win and a bonus 1.5 points for reaching the next stage. If you get through with a win and a defeat it’s 3.5 points (two for a win, plus the qualification bonus). And so on.
The total number of points accrued by all teams from a particular league are then divided by the total number of teams from that league who began the season in European competition to obtain an average rating that determines the all-important standings.
This also therefore means individual match wins are worth more to the score for a country that had fewer teams involved to begin with; a win for any Portuguese side this season, for instance, is worth 0.400pts to the final tally because it is two points divided by the five teams they had in contention when the season began, while for England a two-point win is worth only 0.222pts to the total after it has been divided by nine.
The two bonus spots would currently go to England and Spain – as they did last season. Based on current league tables, the clubs to benefit would be Liverpool and Real Betis.
1) England – 24.791pts
Almost sure of a top-two finish now after all three Thursday night teams reached the last eight to go with Arsenal and Liverpool in the Champions League. Can still semi-realistically be reeled in by Spain, but Portugal are the only other team that can mathematically do so and it requires an outlandish sequence of results from here for that to happen.
England’s score this season is already higher than anyone other than England themselves managed last season, when Spain finished comfortably second with a final tally of 23.892.
With English teams securing five of the eight automatic spots in the last 16 of the Champions League via first, third, fourth, sixth and eighth-place finishes, England pocketed a huge haul of final-position bonus points to further extend their lead here. Even Newcastle added plenty more points to the kitty for finishing 12th and chucked in yet more points for winning home and away against Qarabag.
Spurs couldn’t recover from the catastrophic first leg of their last-16 clash with Atletico Madrid, but did bow out by chucking a last couple of points in the coefficient pot for a 3-2 victory on the night. Every little helps.
Aston Villa eased through to the last eight of the Europa League as expected, while Nottingham Forest (UEL) and Crystal Palace (UECL) both also came through on Thursday night after iffy first-leg results to strengthen England’s position even further.
Total points: 223.125
Total teams: Nine
Teams still active: Five
Quarter-finals: Liverpool (UCL), Arsenal (UCL), Aston Villa (UEL), Nottingham Forest (UEL), Crystal Palace (UECL)
Eliminated: Tottenham (UCL), Newcastle (UCL), Manchester City (UCL), Chelsea (UCL)
2) Spain – 20.281pts
Overwhelming favourites now for the second spot. Endured a tough Champions League league phase, with two of their five teams eliminated and only one direct qualifier to the last 16. But the big three of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid are all now through to the quarter-finals.
Are guaranteed to lose at least one of their Champions League teams in the next round with Barcelona and Atletico Madrid facing each other in the last eight, but that shouldn’t cost them now given Germany and Portugal each have only three remaining teams and Italy not even that.
Total points: 162.250
Total teams: Eight
Teams still active: Six
Quarter-finals: Real Madrid (UCL), Barcelona (UCL), Atletico Madrid (UCL), Real Betis (UEL), Celta Vigo (UEL), Rayo Vallecano (UECL)
Eliminated: Athletic Club (UCL), Villarreal (UCL)
3) Germany – 19.428pts
May come to seriously rue the loss of Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League punishment round after they blew a 2-0 first-leg lead. Bayern are going to the quarter-finals despite running out of goalkeepers, but they are now Germany’s only Big Cup representative.
Indeed, Germany now only have one team standing in each competition after Stuttgart bowed out of the Europa League. It is unlikely to be enough, although they do have a couple of direct opportunities to hurt Spain with Bayern Munich facing Real Madrid in the Champions League and Freiburg up against Celta Vigo in the Europa League.
Total points: 130.500
Total teams: Seven
Teams still active: Three
Quarter-finals: Bayern Munich (UCL), Freiburg (UEL), Mainz (UECL)
Eliminated: Bayer Leverkusen (UCL), Eintracht Frankfurt (UCL), Borussia Dortmund (UCL), Stuttgart (UEL),
4) Portugal – 18.900pts
Actually in a better position to challenge the top two than Germany due to the smaller number of starting teams meaning each individual point earned carries greater weight. Can still in theory catch England, but won’t in reality. Very unlikely to topple Spain, but can’t be entirely ruled out just yet.
Total points: 94.500
Total teams: Five
Teams still active: Three
Quarter-finals: Sporting (UCL), Porto (UEL), Braga (UEL)
Eliminated: Benfica (UCL), Santa Clara (UECL)
5) Italy – 18.714pts
Can still catch Spain if Bologna and Fiorentina go all the way but almost impossible in reality given at least one La Liga team is certain to reach the Champions League semi-final. Are the last country now that even boasts a mathematical chance to unseat either of the current top two.
Total points: 131.000
Total teams: Seven
Teams still active: Two
Quarter-finals: Bologna (UEL), Fiorentina (UECL)
Eliminated: Atalanta (UCL), Inter (UCL), Juventus (UCL), Napoli (UCL), Roma (UEL)
6) France – 16.392pts (3/7 teams active)
7) Poland – 15.750pts (0/4)
8) Greece – 13.800pts (1/5)
9) Denmark – 12.250pts (0/4)
10) Cyprus – 12.156pts (0/4)