The next edition of the Champions League starts in less than a week, as unglamorously as ever with all your favorite Gibraltarian and Sammarinese clubs.
This year marks the first time the previous year's Europa League winner qualifies for the Champions League. Sevilla didn't qualify for the CL via La Liga, so they give Spain a fourth team in the group stage, with a possibility for an unprecedented fifth if Valencia can qualify.
The knock-on effects on seeding mean that the 13th ranked country loses direct entry to the group stage (Basel is bumped into qualifying) and a few other clubs have been bumped to an earlier qualifying stage. The first round has four pairings instead of three:
Lincoln Red Imps (GIB) vs. *FC Santa Coloma (AND)
Crusaders (NIR) vs. *Levadia Tallinn (EST)
*Pyunik (ARM) vs. Folgore (SMR)
B36 Tórshavn (FAR) vs. *The New Saints (WAL)
*Seeded teams
Pyunik won the Armenian title on the back of their American forward Cesar Romero, a Chivas USA castoff who had been out of the game for a year or two. Romero won the league scoring title, but probably won't play for Pyunik here as he's out of contract and likely to leave. He's been trialing in the RPL with Amkar Perm and also apparently has interest from Partizan and a couple of Liga MX clubs.
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Coming into the current season, La Liga has a towering lead over the EPL and the Bundesliga in the UEFA coefficients. At this point, they would have to have multiple disastrous years to surrender their lead atop the rankings. The battle for #2 in the rankings is on this year. England staved off a challenge from Germany last season, but the EPL lost more points when the 10/11 season dropped off and will begin 15/16 with a two point deficit. That's hardly an insurmountable advantage for Germany, but England will probably be hampered by winning an eighth place in Europe via the Fair Play award. Because coefficients are simply a calculation of points earned by a country divided by the number of clubs, West Ham United seems unlikely to pull their weight and will probably drag down the EPL's average.
There's no real advantage to being #2 rather than #3 other than pride. The seeding of clubs in any given round's draw is determined via a blend of club and country performance over the past five years, so increasing a country's coefficient does help in that regard, but for countries this high up in the rankings it would have a negligible effect.
Serie A lies in wait at #4, ~3 points behind England and ~5 points behind Germany. If Italy has another monster year in the Europa they could possibly move up in the rankings, but a lot of things will have to break the right way. While they were the top-ranked league throughout the 1990s, Serie A's ranking has suffered because the top clubs aren't as successful in the Champions League as they once were and the second tier usually phones it in in the Europa League. We will see if last year was a blip or the new reality for them in the EL. One "benefit" is that they only have six clubs in Europa, which can sometimes be beneficial for the coefficient; not having to carry the (in theory) weakest 7th club should help the coefficient/average.
Portugal, France, and Russia are neck-in-neck for #5-7.
2010/11 was a big year for the Eredivisie and a bad year for Belgium. Now that it has fallen off the rankings, Belgium begins the year with ahead of the Netherlands with a three point lead. That's a bit weird to see, although Dutch clubs have been kind of pathetic lately.
The benefits of certain ranking positions are clearly defined here.
This year marks the first time the previous year's Europa League winner qualifies for the Champions League. Sevilla didn't qualify for the CL via La Liga, so they give Spain a fourth team in the group stage, with a possibility for an unprecedented fifth if Valencia can qualify.
The knock-on effects on seeding mean that the 13th ranked country loses direct entry to the group stage (Basel is bumped into qualifying) and a few other clubs have been bumped to an earlier qualifying stage. The first round has four pairings instead of three:
Lincoln Red Imps (GIB) vs. *FC Santa Coloma (AND)
Crusaders (NIR) vs. *Levadia Tallinn (EST)
*Pyunik (ARM) vs. Folgore (SMR)
B36 Tórshavn (FAR) vs. *The New Saints (WAL)
*Seeded teams
Pyunik won the Armenian title on the back of their American forward Cesar Romero, a Chivas USA castoff who had been out of the game for a year or two. Romero won the league scoring title, but probably won't play for Pyunik here as he's out of contract and likely to leave. He's been trialing in the RPL with Amkar Perm and also apparently has interest from Partizan and a couple of Liga MX clubs.
-----
Coming into the current season, La Liga has a towering lead over the EPL and the Bundesliga in the UEFA coefficients. At this point, they would have to have multiple disastrous years to surrender their lead atop the rankings. The battle for #2 in the rankings is on this year. England staved off a challenge from Germany last season, but the EPL lost more points when the 10/11 season dropped off and will begin 15/16 with a two point deficit. That's hardly an insurmountable advantage for Germany, but England will probably be hampered by winning an eighth place in Europe via the Fair Play award. Because coefficients are simply a calculation of points earned by a country divided by the number of clubs, West Ham United seems unlikely to pull their weight and will probably drag down the EPL's average.
There's no real advantage to being #2 rather than #3 other than pride. The seeding of clubs in any given round's draw is determined via a blend of club and country performance over the past five years, so increasing a country's coefficient does help in that regard, but for countries this high up in the rankings it would have a negligible effect.
Serie A lies in wait at #4, ~3 points behind England and ~5 points behind Germany. If Italy has another monster year in the Europa they could possibly move up in the rankings, but a lot of things will have to break the right way. While they were the top-ranked league throughout the 1990s, Serie A's ranking has suffered because the top clubs aren't as successful in the Champions League as they once were and the second tier usually phones it in in the Europa League. We will see if last year was a blip or the new reality for them in the EL. One "benefit" is that they only have six clubs in Europa, which can sometimes be beneficial for the coefficient; not having to carry the (in theory) weakest 7th club should help the coefficient/average.
Portugal, France, and Russia are neck-in-neck for #5-7.
2010/11 was a big year for the Eredivisie and a bad year for Belgium. Now that it has fallen off the rankings, Belgium begins the year with ahead of the Netherlands with a three point lead. That's a bit weird to see, although Dutch clubs have been kind of pathetic lately.
The benefits of certain ranking positions are clearly defined here.