3rd place.

Ah, who cares. When we beat Liverpool on the 23rd we will qualify automatically for next season's CL group stage. While Lazio will bow out in 3rd round qualifying to Dinamo Zagreb or Standard Liege

 

The winners don't qualify automatically anymore I don't think. We'll have to go through CL qualifying in August too win or lose.

 

ya winner's don't even guarentee a berth if they aren't in the top 4. So say Milan won the CL and actualy finished 5th in the league, they would still be playing the Uefa

so luckily we got 3rd/4th

 

didn't they change that with liverpool a couple of years back? I think that the champion definitely gets to go to at least the third round qualifying, and i thought that the champion takes one of the automatic spots in teh group stage of the lowest coefficient league with an automatic bid, but that could be wrong.

 

I just read the regulations of the Champions League and Section 1.03 said that the Champions League winner is guaranteed a place in the group stage if it does not qualify. But it doesn't say anything about if they do qualify and going through the qualification process.

And if we do get an automatic spot, does that mean our spot on the table goes to Empoli or Fiorentina let's say?

 

no, I think what happens is we only get five if we finish outside the top 4. if we are n the top four, then I think italy would have three in the group stage automatically, and 1 team (lazio) in the 3rd round. they take the last automatic qualification spot from the lowest coefficent league (that has an automatic spot) and then that team now plays in 3rd round qualifying. I think that is how they would have done it had arsenal won last year and finished fourth.

 

There is still the 4 teams from 1 country rule.

 

well, did they formalize it after 2004/2005. cause that year everton got in 3rd round qualifying, andliverpool got in by virtue of their cl win, liverpool just had to go through the whole qualifying campaign, but england had five teams in it

 

After that season UEFA changed the rules. No country can have more than 4 teams in the CL. So, if Milan were to finish 5th in Serie A and win the CL the 4th placed Serie A team would go into the UEFA Cup. And as I previously said: the CL winner, regardless of domestic position, automatically gets put into the group stage. So besides the revenge factor our players might have something more important to play for in May 23rd: An extra two weeks of vacation. God knows we could have used that this year.

 

ok, I got it now. I had thought that it was still like in 2005. thanks.

 

Last year the new rules were almost tested in England. Spurs and Arsenal were battling for 4th spot in England. But Arsenal was in the CL final. So, if Spurs finished 4th(ahead of Arsenal) but Arsenal won the CL, Spurs would have lost out and had to go to the UEFA Cup instead of the CL. Luckily it never came to that as Spurs choked on the last day and Arsenal finished 4th before they had to contest the CL final.

 

yeah, I thought that five people would have been in last year, but now that you mention it i remember that that was discussed as a possibility. I don't know why I was thinking of just 2005 instead.

 

are you sure? because I think it's the other way around and that the Champion wouldn't be there to defend the title

 

I'm positive. Here is the offical CL regulations: http://www.uefa.com/newsfiles/19071.pdf

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