UEFA coefficient ranking, (*denotes not yet qualified for the group stage): Top group: 1 AC Milan (Ita, holders, 97.155), 2 Real Madrid (Spa, 151.769), 3 Manchester United (Eng, 136.170), 4 Bayern Munich (Ger, 124.566), 5 Lazio* (Ita, 106.155), 6 Arsenal (Eng, 105.170), 7 Juventus (Ita, 100.155), 8 Deportivo La Coruna* (Spa, 98.769). Second group: 9 Inter Milan (Ita, 93.155), 10 Porto (Por, 86.791), 11 Celta Vigo* (Spa, 86.769), 12 Galatasaray* (Tur, 78.495), 13 Lyon (Fra, 76.734), 14 Panathinaikos (Gre, 72.391), 15 Borussia Dortmund* (Ger, 70.566), 16 Chelsea* (Eng, 70.170). Third group: 17 PSV Eindhoven (Hol, 60.749), 18 Celtic* (Sco, 57.187), 19 AEK Athens* (Gre, 56.391), 20 Dynamo Kiev (Ukr, 55291), 21 Ajax Amsterdam * (Hol, 54.749), 22 Olympiakos (Gre, 54.391), 23 Newcastle* (Eng, 51.170), 24 Rangers* (Sco, 50.187) Fourth group: 25 Sparta Prague* (Cze, 49.975), 26 Olympique Marseille* (Fra, 49.734), 27 Stuttgart (Ger, 49.566), 28 Locomotive Moscow* (Rus, 49.520), 29 Slavia Prague* (Cze, 48.975), 30 Real Sociedad (Spa, 47.769), 31 Monaco (Fra, 45.734), 32 Besiktas (Tur, 33.495) Laughable isn't it? The mighty Chelsea, knocked out of Uefa Cup 3 years running by Me and my Mum FC ahead of Champions League quarter finalists Ajax.
This is awful. Lazio ahead of Inter Milan? How the hell does this system work? Inter finished 2 places ahead of Lazio in the their league and made it to the freaking semi-finals of the Champions League! Here's how I would seed it. First Group: AC Milan (Italy 3rd, CL champ) Juventus (Italy champ, CL runner up) Real Madrid (Spanish champ/possibly 2nd, CL SF) Manchester United (England champ, CL QF) Bayern Munich (German champ) Inter Milan (Italy 2nd, CL SF) Arsenal (England 2nd, CL 2nd group) Deportivo la Coruna (Spanish 3rd, CL 2nd group) Second Group: Real Sociedad (Spanish 2nd, possibly champ) Lazio (Italy 4th, Uefa Cup SF) Celta Vigo (Spain 4th, Uefa Cup 4th round) Borussia Dortmund (German 3rd, CL 2nd group) Porto (Portugal champ, Uefa Cup winner) Ajax (Dutch 2nd, CL QF) Celtic (Scotland 2nd, Uefa Cup runner up) Newcastle United (England 3rd, CL 2nd group) Third Group: PSV Eindhoven (Dutch champ) Rangers (Scotland champ) Chelsea (England 4th) Stuttgart (German 2nd, 5th round Uefa Cup) Lyon (French champ) Besiktas (Turkish champ, Uefa Cup QF) Panathanaikos (Greek 2nd, Uefa Cup QF) Galatasary (Turkish 2nd) Fourth Group: Olympiakos (Greek champ) Olympique Marseille (French 3rd) AEK Athens (Greek 3rd, Uefa Cup 5th round) Monaco (French 2nd) Dynamo Kiev (Ukraine champ) Sparta Prague Lokomotiv Moscow (Russia Champ) Slavia Prague It's not perfect, as one could debate just how much leverage European success should have in relation to domestic ranking (ie Deportivo above Sociedad, Celtic above Rangers, Ajax above PSV, Panathanaikos over Olympiakos).
I think the seeding goes on past European results for the last 5 years. That explains Sociedad in group 4 as they haven't played in Europe during that period. Lazio ahead of Inter? Sounds a little questionable. But ahead of Juventus, thats crazy.
The CL seedings are based on a five year period so Lazio being ahead of Inter is about right because Inter have only done something the last 2 years in europe. The only problem I have is that the UEFA Cup is given to much weight in the coefficients.
Listen ya bitter bluescouse yokel, those numbers wern't drawn from a hat ya know. Oh...you wouldn't know would you. Chelsea will lose out considerably in the coming 2 years of ranking on the back of the 3 exits you mentioned. Now ************ off.
these rankings are a joke!!! what a team did 5 years ago should not have nothing to do with their ranking NOW.the rankings should be based only on the present performance of the teams.... Lazio ahead of Inter and Porto after being whiped 4-0 by Porto in the Uefa cup semis.....what Desportivo la Coruna did to deserve to be in the top group? what about Arsenal? what they did besides wining the Fa cup? why is Ajax so far down while they were the CL quarter finalists and 2nd in their domestic league? why is Porto so far down when they won the Uefa cup, won their domestic league and won the Portuguese cup? they should be on the top group....and Celta Vigo is way to high, they are listed above Celtic, Porto and Ajax...they only made it to the 4th round on the Uefa cup and 4th in la liga. how are they ahead of Porto which had the treble this year?....these ranks are CRAP AND BIAS....
I must agree that these rankings are done quite poorly IMO. I understand about the whole 5-year timespan, but seeing this... how about bringing it back to two or maybe three?
Or they could do what they do for the World Cup seedings. The most recent year counts double to the previous year and so on. That way consistency helps but having a great previous year counts just as much.
Give me a break! Rosenborg is better than 1/3 of the team listed in the seedings of those 4 groups! They have participated in every CL since the advent of the League format! UEFA should get there heads out of there....well I won't go there.
UEFA Team Ranking 2003: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/trank03.html UEFA Team Coefficients 2002/2003: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/tcoef03.html It's not only team performance that counts for the team coefficient, but also the performance of the league the club plays in.