So English clubs are off to a pretty dreadful start in the Champions League this season! Is this the season England loses its 4th CL spot? Then again, Serie A clubs aren't exactly off to a flying start either. Perhaps their respective performances in the Europa League will end up being the deciding factor(?). Currently England are still 4.2 coefficient points ahead of Italy but have already lost 2 teams from European competitions during the qualifying rounds while Italy has lost 1. Discuss.
England has more points than Italy so far in 2015-2016 but has lost ground to Italy due to 2010-2011 dropping out. Another question is if Russia can pass France and/or Portugal to re-enter the Top 6 and get three Champions League spots.
Difference down to 3.5 after this week's games. A good week for Russia too and that league is now within a point of France for 6th.
The writing is on the wall for the Premier League. Underperforming in the EL that much will cost you - Italy learned that the hard way when the Bundesliga surpassed Serie A the exact same way.
Bundlesliga surpassed SerieA with better results in the CL for years. The EL added a nice bonus but the main part was done in the CL. I don't know why this isn't known in Italy, it's pretty easy to google. I would like it if SerieA would claim the 4th spot again, though.
If England looses a CL spot it will also mean heads of coaches of clubs for the remaining three will be axed faster then before. The chance to get a CL spot drops a whopping 25 %!
If Italy can have a good year I think they will. Next year the 11/12 numbers drop off which is basically England's advantage right now. Also a fascinating race for 5th and 6th between Russia, Portugal and France. I must say I'm impressed with Russia who I thought would crumble with the economic sanctions, but they seem to be off to a fantastic start.
"For years"..? Bayern and Dortmund have a couple of good showings now the Germans think they're hot shit, Slow down son.
They're not the only good German clubs. Schalke 04 reached the Champions League Round of 16 in 2012-2013, 2013-2014, and 2014-2015.
Liverpool thinks so and their fans too, as they are very happy with the coach behind the BorDor success. I already read analysis by them how Klopp is going to disrupt ManCityManUChelseArsenal with his famous midfield approach.
There is also that miraculous run to the Semi-final in 2010-2011 too. Bayer Leverkusen also reached the Champions League Round of 16 too in 2011-2012, 2013-2014, and 2014-2015.
Do I accept the fact that minnow German clubs like Shalke and Leverkuisen have accumulated symbolic victories over a period of a few years - more than Italian, French and Portugese teams despite never being remotely close to contention for a Champions League title. Yes I accept that fact.
On the contrary, if anything Italy has used the Europa League to pad their UEFA coefficient more than Germany. Only 1 Serie A club made it to the knockout rounds of the CL in each of the past 2 seasons. Of course those crashing out early from the CL managed to be just good enough to get relegated to the EL where they continued to collect more points. Germany sent 4 and 4 again to the CL ko rounds. Sure only Bayern can probably be classified as a legit title contender but # of legit contenders isn't the be-all and end-all. And in any event, Italy only has 1 contender too (if we're being nice).
If you take the results from the last four years only, England would be in fourth, by a scant 0.423 points. Meaning, of course, that the results from the remaining of this season (2015-2016), plus next season (16-17), decides the places for 18-19. numCountryPts, 12/13 to 15/16 1Spain66.713 2Germany53.641 3Italy51.582 4England51.159 5France35.916 6Russia35.732 7Portugal34.915 8Ukraine31.333 9Turkey25.700 10Switzerland25.175 11Belgium24.900 12Czech Republic24.075
Nah, I think its more like: ESP - - - ENG/DEU - ITA FRA/RUS/POR - etc. The fact that Italy is so close to catching England in the coefficient (although note that the difference b/w ENG and DEU coefficients is also pretty negligible) is partly a byproduct of England having more teams in Europe (and twice as many teams in the CL) than Italy . If and when Italy pass England, that would no longer be the case. IOW, even if Italy pass England to get the 4th CL spot, I suspect they will only be able to hold on to it for 2 years max and then England would regain it.
I think the leagues should be evaluated based on how they actually do, not based on hypotheticals if the leagues had the same number of clubs in Europe. For the last four complete seasons and 2015-2016 so far, Portugal in 5th is closer to Switzerland in 12th than Italy in 4th.
Difference back up from 3.5 to 3.9 between ENG and ITA for 3rd after a good CL round for the EPL. The late goal for Man City could prove huge for the EPL keeping its 4th CL spot! Russia now within 0.5 points of France for 6th too.
http://www.espnfc.com/uefa-champion...-premier-league-lose-a-champions-league-place is titled "Could the Premier League lose a Champions League place?"
Russia continues to surprise me ... All 5 of their remaining teams are being competitive. Zenit and Lokomotiv look very likely to advance. Krasnodar is in 2nd place in their group. CSKA is in a tough group that will likely be decided on the last match day.
Cool, but I disagree with the key point of the article: "A bad season for English clubs in Europe alone will not make a difference -- Italian clubs would also have to do well. " This is sort of why I am updating the point difference after every European week. It illustrates that even after a week where English teams do well or Italian teams do poorly, Italy still gains ground. It's looking like just one of those conditions in the above-quoted sentence needs to happen for England to lose their 4th spot. A key for EPL to keep 4 spots will be getting 3 or 4 EPL teams to the knockout phase of the CL (hence, mega bonus points) while hoping that Italy sends 0 or 1. In this regard, I see 4 matches being huge in the CL group-stage: - Sevilla v Man City (City better get a point or high-scoring 1 goal loss as bare minimum) - Bayern v Arsenal & Olympiakos v Arsenal (a point in Munich would be huge) - Roma v Bayer (pretty much determines who joins Barca from that group in the KO stage) Note 3 of those matches are this week. Chelsea and Man Utd seem to be going through more comfortably, but 2 EPL teams advancing would not be enough IMO.