Italy vs England vs Germany (UEFA Coefficients Race)

The Man Himself said:
Naah, Germany is safe for 1-2 more seasons. Currently around 7 points ahead of Italy and 4 ahead of England. Having more points for this season than England & Italy. Also 2012-15 the total is slightly better than the other two.
Two teams going out will be disadvantage going forward this season but I think there is enough buffer for 1-2 more seasons. Also, am expecting Bayern and Dortmund to progress deep this season to ensure Germany stay ahead in coefficient race.
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While this could be true, I would have preferred Gladbach collecting some further points for Germany in the Europa League to leave the mid-term battle for 4 CL spots between England and Italy. :cool:
Most likely Ausgburg will drop out too and it remains to be seen what Leverkusen can do this season.

Balu said:
We were always in the race, just with a slight headstart. We won't drop down this season, but if we again lose points on Italy, we're in trouble very soon.

Dortmund and Schalke missing out on the CL hurt us a lot, because they regularly make it out of their CL group and Leverkusen/Gladbach would have done well in EL groups anyway. The difficult draw for Gladbach and Leverkusen didn't help either. Hopefully Schalke, Dortmund and depending on the results today Leverkusen can make a deep run in the EL. Maybe Wolfsburg gets an easy draw and make it to the quarterfinals, that would be brilliant.
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I enjoyed the headstart very much. Very annoying that Gladbach not even plays Europa League, they would have been very useful to secure our spots.

I don't count on Leverkusen this season, and when it comes to Wolfsburg, their potential opponents read so far PSG, Juventus, Benfica, Roma or BATE (provided Leverkusen doesn't make it), Olympiakos or Arsenal, Gent or Valencia, one of the Porto / Chelsea / Kiev lot. IMO it'll need a lot of "drawing luck" for them to survive the last 16.

Generally speaking, you can pick almost as many points in the EL with a deep run as compared to the CL. The difference is only 3 points actually. But without many contenders progressing, it's difficult whatever route clubs take.
 
Crossie said:
I don't count on Leverkusen this season, and when it comes to Wolfsburg, their potential opponents read so far PSG, Juventus, Benfica, Roma or BATE (provided Leverkusen doesn't make it), Olympiakos or Arsenal, Gent or Valencia, one of the Porto / Chelsea / Kiev lot. IMO it'll need a lot of "drawing luck" for them to survive the last 16.
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They have a decent chance against all but PSG and Juventus in my opinion. They won't be favourite of course, but they certainly weren't favourites to top their group either. It's really not that bad for them and there's a good chance that they improve over the winterbreak. It finally looks as if Schürrle, Draxler and Kruse start to play well together. If Gustavo is fully fit again and Rodriguez finds his best form, they're a much stronger team than people give them credit for.
 
There are a lot of ifs but I see your point. I think though that their achilles' heel is the CB pair. Dante hasn't convinced me, and neither has Klose. Knoche has come good for some time for the first year of Hecking's tenure and then fell in his pecking order for whatever reason.
 
Bert updated his site yesterday night: http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/method4/crank2016.html

It needs to be mentioned that he has already included points for all teams that reached the CL KO stage, e.g. Barcelona and Bayern, and therefore it's a tad skewed.

1 Spain | 94.856
2 Germany | 74.320
3 England | 70.534
4 Italy | 67.439

The team ranking doesn't look too pretty for you right now: http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/method4/trank2016.html

18 Bayer Leverkusen | 81.864
19 Sevilla | 78.471
20 Manchester United | 78.106
21 Olympiakos Piraeus | 70.860
22 Tottenham Hotspur | 68.106

If Olympiakos goes through to CL KO stages, they'll be very soon at your neck.
 
Italy is already ahead of England in the 2017 ranking. Which means English teams will have to do better than them in the remainder of this season and all of the next, because if it's evenly spread out, they win.
 
Imagine the meltdown of English media if the 4th spot will be lost. It will be epic.
 
PedroMendez said:
headline: Premier league too strong for 4th CL spot.
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or: How the SUPER AWESOME competitiveness of the PL cost England its 4th CL spot and several world cups.

or: How will CL and UEFA survive financially with only 3 English teams?
 
Crossie said:
Imagine the meltdown of English media if the 4th spot will be lost. It will be epic.
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It's the sort of rude awakening the league needs after years of poor management and treating the EL like a worthless competition.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
It's the sort of rude awakening the league needs after years of poor management and treating the EL like a worthless competition.
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If the horrible defeat 2010 in South Africa didn't convince the league, why should losing a 4th spot? This debate has been going on forever, why should it change now? I think it needs an actual new generation of managers to change something in England, but this is just me talking from an outsider's point of view. I could be horribly wrong in my assessment.
 
Lagger said:
If the horrible defeat 2010 in South Africa didn't convince the league, why should losing a 4th spot? This debate has been going on forever, why should it change now? I think it needs an actual new generation of managers to change something in England, but this is just me talking from an outsider's point of view. I could be horribly wrong in my assessment.
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2010 didn't hit the clubs' pockets. Losing a CL spot would definitely impact the value of the league.
 
Yesterday was a good night for English football:

2016
1 Spain | 94.999
2 Germany | 74.749
3 England | 72.284
4 Italy | 68.439

@Arruda made a good point to look already ahead:

2017
1 Spain | 74.142
2 Germany | 59.499
3 Italy | 57.082
4 England | 57.034

Who will have 4 CL spots in the near future will be a competition on its own.
 
It always seems odd to me that the EL can have such an impact on the CL.
 
ivaldo said:
It always seems odd to me that the EL can have such an impact on the CL.
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Why - both competitons are connected. Not just the drop down of the 3rd out of the group stage but already in the qualifying. The system is not just valid for the top countries. And when a country is more successful over the years than another - why shouldn't they rewarded.

I have not found an English equivalent to the following table. It shows the nations and how many CL spots they get, how many CL qualifying spots, EL spots, EL qualifying spots (including in what round they start).

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA-Fünfjahreswertung#Zugangsliste_2015.2F16
 
Blackwidow said:
Why - both competitons are connected. Not just the drop down of the 3rd out of the group stage but already in the qualifying. The system is not just valid for the top countries. And when a country is more successful over the years than another - why shouldn't they rewarded.

I have not found an English equivalent to the following table. It shows the nations and how many CL spots they get, how many CL qualifying spots, EL spots, EL qualifying spots (including in what round they start).

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA-Fünfjahreswertung#Zugangsliste_2015.2F16
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Because a country could still make ground on another because they perform better in an inferior competiton whilst performing slightly worse in the elite competiton, that's odd for me.
 
ivaldo said:
Because a country could still make ground on another because they perform better in an inferior competiton whilst performing slightly worse in the elite competiton, that's odd for me.
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What's wrong with factoring in depth? The nation ranking does not determine [for top nations] whether or not the best team of a country gets to play CL football, it decides whether or not the 4th and the 6th best teams get to play CL/EL football.
 
do.ob said:
What's wrong with factoring in depth? The nation ranking does not determine [for top nations] whether or not the best team of a country gets to play CL football, it decides whether or not the 4th and the 6th best teams get to play CL/EL football.
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Surely a better indicator on how many teams play in a competiton form a nation is how well that nation does in that competiton, not that competiton + an inferior one.
 
ivaldo said:
Surely a better indicator on how many teams play in a competiton form a nation is how well that nation does in that competiton, not that competiton + an inferior one.
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Well the nation ranking is there to determine the spots for both competitions, so your argument doesn't apply I guess?!

And again: the teams which are most likely to benefit from an additional CL spot are the ones which were playing EL most of the times, so in that light it makes perfect sense to me if EL performances are included even from a purely CL point of view - to factor in the worthyness of the teams who would move up.


I actually don't see any problem at all with the current system, as it seems to yield a fairly accurate reflection of how well the countries and their teams are doing.
 
ivaldo said:
Surely a better indicator on how many teams play in a competiton form a nation is how well that nation does in that competiton, not that competiton + an inferior one.
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You'd deny smaller nations the chance to improve though, even more than it's happening anyway, because the big leagues steal every half decent talent almost instantly. You want to reward smaller nations for doing well in the inferior competition and give them the chance to move up and have a shot at the bigger one. If they fail to establish themselves in both competitions, they'll drop down again anyway.
 
Balu said:
You'd deny smaller nations the chance to improve though, even more than it's happening anyway, because the big leagues steal every half decent talent almost instantly. You want to reward smaller nations for doing well in the inferior competition and give them the chance to move up and have a shot at the bigger one. If they fail to establish themselves in both competitions, they'll drop down again anyway.
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Surely the competiton is there for the best teams in Europe to compete though right? If these smaller sides were good enough to compete in the CL they would be finishing top of their respective leagues regardless, or at least advancing through the qualifying rounds to the group stages.

You could argue giving a leg up to the better teams in smaller leagues will only cause the gap between the top and bottom sides in those leagues to widen, meaning less competiton, less interest in their leagues and ultimately less income to keep their most promising players anyway.
 
do.ob said:
And again: the teams which are most likely to benefit from an additional CL spot are the ones which were playing EL most of the times, so in that light it makes perfect sense to me if EL performances are included even from a purely CL point of view - to factor in the worthyness of the teams who would move up.


I actually don't see any problem at all with the current system, as it seems to yield a fairly accurate reflection of how well the countries and their teams are doing.
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Those teams aren't good enough to finish in the qualifying spots for the Champions league in the first place though right? The competition to determine who plays in the CL is the national league, it shouldn't be the EL aswell. I understand where everyone is coming from I just tend to disagree, I want to see the best competition possible with the strongest teams possible.
 
ivaldo said:
Those teams aren't good enough to finish in the qualifying spots for the Champions league in the first place though right? The competition to determine who plays in the CL is the national league, it shouldn't be the EL aswell. I understand where everyone is coming from I just tend to disagree, I want to see the best competition possible with the strongest teams possible.
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I think you're more concerned with the weighting of EL and CL results for those spots, ie. EL being worth slightly too much? I think the idea that the EL does have some influence is a good one, but it'd be silly if a small club goes to the CL, gets stomped and makes less points for the coefficient than if he had just played the EL that season.

About "the best competition possible with the strongest teams": Don't mistake that for "the biggest names that I consider worthy". The nature of competition is that names do not matter, success does. That's why competetive sport is so brutal. You don't get by on merits alone.
 
ivaldo said:
You could argue giving a leg up to the better teams in smaller leagues will only cause the gap between the top and bottom sides in those leagues to widen, meaning less competiton, less interest in their leagues and ultimately less income to keep their most promising players anyway.
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But UEFA isn't repsonsible for the gap between the teams in those leagues. UEFA is responsible for keeping the gap between the actual leagues small. As it stands the top clubs from some countries have to go through 4 rounds of qualifiers to have a chance to get into the CL whereas even the second/third placed teams don't even go to the qualifiers. You can't determine the strength of the lower leagues just by looking at the CL qualifier results. It's just too small of a sample. By far more leagues are represented in the EL than in the CL so the EL becomes a great platform to rank leagues. Obviously our focus is solely on the top teams, but it's really not fair if teams from other countries can't even get themselves further up in the system. I'm sure that's why the EL gives you a lot of points, too, and it really should. You can't award the league of the CL winner with all the points when ALL the other teams, including the EL teams fail against their counterparts from other leagues. That said a good EL run still gives you far less points than a good CL run.

I don't think the ranking system is much of a problem here. It's far better than say the FIFA country ranking. :lol:
 
Crossie said:
Yesterday was a good night for English football:

2016
1 Spain | 94.999
2 Germany | 74.749
3 England | 72.284
4 Italy | 68.439

@Arruda made a good point to look already ahead:

2017
1 Spain | 74.142
2 Germany | 59.499
3 Italy | 57.082
4 England | 57.034

Who will have 4 CL spots in the near future will be a competition on its own.
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2011-12 is the difference maker while considering 2017(spots for 2018-19). England had ~4 points over Italy that season and that season will be out of consideration when 2016-17 season is on. Italy had 5.5 points over England last season and that is going to loom large for few more seasons. In 2012-13 and 13-14, England still had 2 points on Italy each season but going forward, England need at least one big season over Italy to negate 2014-15 advantage of Italy and that should come within next 1-2 seasons.

I say UEFA should just award 4 places to top 4 leagues and end this complication :D
 
Lyricist said:
But UEFA isn't repsonsible for the gap between the teams in those leagues. UEFA is responsible for keeping the gap between the actual leagues small. As it stands the top clubs from some countries have to go through 4 rounds of qualifiers to have a chance to get into the CL whereas even the second/third placed teams don't even go to the qualifiers. You can't determine the strength of the lower leagues just by looking at the CL qualifier results. It's just too small of a sample. By far more leagues are represented in the EL than in the CL so the EL becomes a great platform to rank leagues. Obviously our focus is solely on the top teams, but it's really not fair if teams from other countries can't even get themselves further up in the system. I'm sure that's why the EL gives you a lot of points, too, and it really should. You can't award the league of the CL winner with all the points when ALL the other teams, including the EL teams fail against their counterparts from other leagues. That said a good EL run still gives you far less points than a good CL run.

I don't think the ranking system is much of a problem here. It's far better than say the FIFA country ranking. :lol:
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True I suppose this isn't in their remit, although Arsenal have proved if you are good enough for the CL you can breeze through the qualifying rounds, it's only the odd hiccup where we see quality teams failing to make it through these rounds.

What the FIFA rankings need is a good old fashioned bit of corruption, that'll sort it out.
 
What's worth more....United losing in the CL 1st Knockout Stage or Europa Semi-Final loss?
 
Zen said:
What's worth more....United losing in the CL 1st Knockout Stage or Europa Semi-Final loss?
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Scenario 1 - CL 1st knockout stages:
Reaching CL group stages: 4 pts
6 CL group games (0-2 each) - let's assume 1st/2nd place is ~10-16 points (7-12 UEFA pts)
Qualifying to 1/16: 4 pts
Plus another two games in 1/16: (0-2 pts*)
Total: 15-22 pts

Scenario 2 - EL Semifinal:
Reaching CL group stages: 4 pts (then being knocked out to EL)
6 CL group games (0-2 each) - let's assume 3rd place is ~8pts (6 UEFA pts)
Two games in EL 1/32th (2-4 pts**)
Reaching EL 1/16 - 1 point
Two games in EL 1/16th (2-4 pts**)
Reaching EL QF - 1 point
Two games in EL QF - (2-4 pts**)
Reaching EL SF - 1 points
Two games in EL SF (0-2 pts*)
Total: 21-27 pts

So generally, reaching EL semifinal means more points than CL 1/16th.

*Losing in knock-out stages:
0 points for losing two games
1 point for losing one, drawing another
2 points for winning one, losing another, or two draws
In each case, you're knocked out.

**Winning in knock-out stages:
2 points for drawing two games, which still get you through, or loss/win
3 points for a win and a draw
4 points for two wins
 
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Zen said:
What's worth more....United losing in the CL 1st Knockout Stage or Europa Semi-Final loss?
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It depends on your results that get you there but usually EL semi loss > CL L16 loss.

You get more bonus points in the CL but it's often harder to win games; therefore points awarded for wins suck. On top of that, if you reach EL round of last 16, you play 2 more games in the EL as compared to the CL, potentially 2 x 2 = 4 points.
 
ivaldo said:
Surely the competiton is there for the best teams in Europe to compete though right? If these smaller sides were good enough to compete in the CL they would be finishing top of their respective leagues regardless, or at least advancing through the qualifying rounds to the group stages.

You could argue giving a leg up to the better teams in smaller leagues will only cause the gap between the top and bottom sides in those leagues to widen, meaning less competiton, less interest in their leagues and ultimately less income to keep their most promising players anyway.
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But it has become a league system now. It's not solely a best team in each country competition anymore like it was back when we had the European Cup, it's about the countries/leagues as a whole now. It's basically a promotion/relegation system for clubs/countries.

For example, you don't know if the 4th best team in Italy is better than the 4th best team in Spain and the 4th best team in Italy has no chance to prove that unless they regularly do well in the EL and help their country to earn a 4th CL spot to show it.

I totally disagree with the 2nd part of your post. The notion that smaller leagues can grow more through competitiveness without anyone in the CL than through one team doing well in the CL isn't true at all in my opinion. The focus on competitiveness has become a weird narrative on the Caf that fans use to explain the growth of the PL at a time when no English club is dominant anymore. The PL growth right now is still based on the dominance in the CL in the last decade, when the PL was the least competitive top league in Europe (click here if you want to know what I mean). What fueled the massive growth of the PL was the quality of the top sides and that they showed it regularly on the biggest stage. There's no way a small league can grow through competitiveness, if no one notices that there's quality in the league as @Sarni often mentions in regards to the Ekstraklasa.
 
Balu said:
But it has become a league system now. It's not solely a best team in each country competition anymore like it was back when we had the European Cup, it's about the countries/leagues as a whole now. It's basically a promotion/relegation system for clubs/countries.

For example, you don't know if the 4th best team in Italy is better than the 4th best team in Spain and the 4th best team in Italy has no chance to prove that unless they regularly do well in the EL and help their country to earn a 4th CL spot to show it.

I totally disagree with the 2nd part of your post. The notion that smaller leagues can grow more through competitiveness without anyone in the CL than through one team doing well in the CL isn't true at all in my opinion. The focus on competitiveness has become a weird narrative on the Caf that fans use to explain the growth of the PL at a time when no English club is dominant anymore. The PL growth right now is still based on the dominance in the CL in the last decade, when the PL was the least competitive top league in Europe (click here if you want to know what I mean). What fueled the massive growth of the PL was the quality of the top sides and that they showed it regularly on the biggest stage. There's no way a small league can grow through competitiveness, if no one notices that there's quality in the league as @Sarni often mentions in regards to the Ekstraklasa.
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The example above illustrated beautifully the point I'm trying to make. Reaching the semi finals in the EL can accredit your nation with more points than reaching the last 16 of the CL, in what world is that a biggest achievement? Why should that adversely affect the teams competing at a far higher level with much better sides? We don't know how the 4th placed side compares to another 4th placed side from another league, we do have an idea how all teams in the CL compare though, and they ARE better teams than those that missed out because they finished above them in the league.
 
ivaldo said:
The example above illustrated beautifully the point I'm trying to make. Reaching the semi finals in the EL can accredit your nation with more points than reaching the last 16 of the CL, in what world is that a biggest achievement? Why should that adversely affect the teams competing at a far higher level with much better sides? We don't know how the 4th placed side compares to another 4th placed side from another league, we do have an idea how all teams in the CL compare though, and they ARE better teams than those that missed out because they finished above them in the league.
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But the higher placed nations have the chance to do that as well? Spain has 4 CL spots and 3 EL spots, while Italy has 3 CL spots and 3 EL spots. So when Italian EL teams outperform Spanish EL teams, it tells something about the depth of the league, therefore the league is rewarded. It's slightly easier for the lower placed leagues to collect points, but that's in my opinion a good thing to create more changes and give smaller clubs/countries more often a chance to move up and show if they're good enough.

It's a bit like relegation/promotion in domestic leagues. You don't know if the 2nd placed team in the championship is better than the 20th team in the PL either. You give them a chance to move up and establish themselves after they've proven they deserve a shot. If they fail, the order will change back to what it was before. What's wrong with that? I really don't see any advantage in separating the CL from the EL in the 5 year ranking other than making another huge step towards an European super league without qualification at all that completely excludes smaller leagues/clubs.
 
ivaldo said:
The example above illustrated beautifully the point I'm trying to make. Reaching the semi finals in the EL can accredit your nation with more points than reaching the last 16 of the CL, in what world is that a biggest achievement? Why should that adversely affect the teams competing at a far higher level with much better sides? We don't know how the 4th placed side compares to another 4th placed side from another league, we do have an idea how all teams in the CL compare though, and they ARE better teams than those that missed out because they finished above them in the league.
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I think it's far easier to overcome most of the pot 3 and 4 teams you get served as a top team than making it through three knock out rounds vs teams in the EL.
 
ivaldo said:
The example above illustrated beautifully the point I'm trying to make. Reaching the semi finals in the EL can accredit your nation with more points than reaching the last 16 of the CL, in what world is that a biggest achievement? Why should that adversely affect the teams competing at a far higher level with much better sides? We don't know how the 4th placed side compares to another 4th placed side from another league, we do have an idea how all teams in the CL compare though, and they ARE better teams than those that missed out because they finished above them in the league.
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Why should success not be rewarded? The margin between 2nd or 3rd in the CL group stage can be fairly small but gets rewarded with 5 extra points (look e.g. at Arsenal and Olympiakos this season or Leverkusen and Roma who ended on same points).

Let the one who gets into the CL round of 16 have one draw and a loss - then it is 6 points.
To do the same in the Europa League you need another 2 wins and a draw and atleast another round in the Europa League - against a middle class opponent (the really small teams drop out in the Europa League group stage).
 
The CL draw is quite interesting for this 3 way fight. The English clubs got really lucky in the draw for the groups, but failed to take advantage and create a big gap to Germany and Italy. Now they have a tough draw and it's not unlikely that only City will go through to the quarterfinals.

At least the Italian teams have got equally bad draws. I can't see Roma getting more than maybe 1 draw in the 2 games. Juve - Bayern is great for England no matter who goes out. If Bayern goes through, Italy will lose a strong team that could have gone far again. If Juve goes through, it's pretty bad for Germany and it would allow England to close the gap to us.

It's a great draw for Germany, unless Bayern fecks up against Juve. Wolfsburg has a great chance to go through against Gent.
 
Forgot to update...

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What are the odds of all Italian teams going out at first knockouts? (R16 or R32 whichever applicable). Not one Italian team got easy draw. I expect couple to sneak through though. More so in Europa than in CL. Napoli and Lazio more likely.
 
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