Hearts vs Plzen is 0-0 in the 2nd half. Plzen are only up 1 goal on aggregate, but this match is dreadful. That 1 goal advantage could well be enough.
And Cerv more or less puts the tie to rest with a late goal. ~15 minutes remaining and Plzen up 2 goals on aggregate. Plzen would join Slavia in Europa League, I presume as a pot 2 team, but not sure.
Slavia's opposition 1H. Ajax 1A. Eintracht Frankfurt 2H Fenerbahce 2A PAOK 3H Malmo 3A Ludogrets Razgrad 4H Anderlecht 4A Athletic Bilbao Plzen's opposition 1H Manchester United 1A Eintracht Frankfurt 2H Real Sociedad 2A PAOK 3H Ludogrets Razgrad 3A Dynamo Kyiv 4H Anderlecht 4A Athletic Bilbao I'm first of all surprised at how many off the same opponents they will share. I don't really see Plzen being too competitive at this level compared to conference league last year, but their should be at least 7-9 points in there. Slavia have a fun group of opponents and I think they should be able to to fairly well.
Mlada Boleslav's draw 1H - Real Betis 2A - Molde 3A - Vitoria de Guimaraes 4H- Lugano 5H - Jagillonia Bialystok 6A - Noah (ARM) I'm vaguely aware of the first 4 teams, and my guess is Mlada Boleslav slots in around Lugano... also this Noah guy must be some player to make it into conference league solo...
FWIW we already have 5.3 points on our coefficient average ahead of the league stage, we in the past (except for last years 13.5) tend to average between 6-7 points, so unless every team just completely flops we'll exceed the average and possibly retain the 9th ranking that we have currently (Turkey is the only league with a chance of catching us).
Does the coefficient account for the competition and level of opposition relative to that club? So Sparta potentially being blown out of the Champions League won’t be worse than if they just played in the Europa League? I’ve clearly never paid much attention to the coefficient system and how it works over the years.
I've not looked too deep into it either, but I think on an individual match level I think it retains the all results are even approach, but there is a bonus for making the Champions League group stages. I think there are also bonuses for advancing in a top 8 (or whatever is now analogous to being a "group winner").
Actually it's fairly straightforward, yes all matches equal, but different bonus levels for milestones in each competition: https://www.uefa.com/nationalassociations/uefarankings/country/about/ Points are awarded as follows: 2 – All wins from group stage (UCL, UEL, UECL) 1 – All wins in qualifying and play-off matches (UCL, UEL, UECL) 1 – All draws from group stage (UCL, UEL, UECL) 0.5 – All draws in qualifying and play-off matches (UCL, UEL, UECL) 4 – Group stage bonus participation (UCL) 4 – Round of 16 bonus participation (UCL) 4 – Group winners (UEL) 2 – Group runners-up (UEL) 2 – Group winners (UECL) 1 – Group runners-up (UECL) 1 – Each round clubs reach from the round of 16 (UCL, UEL) 1 – Each round clubs reach from the semi-finals (UECL) Our total will be these points earned divided by 5 since that is how many teams we had in Europe. Frankly we probably wouldn't want to go any higher than where we are, we get auto Champions League and 4 teams in other levels, but if we are already stretching our competitiveness sending any teams outside of the S and Plzen. What's odd is that UEFA's in progress ranking doesn't include the bonuses, so the best up-to-date ranking is still that ancient looking website: https://kassiesa.net/uefa/data/method5/crank2025.html
Sparta start Champions League with one of their more playable fixtures hosting Red Bull Salzburg. Definitely a must win if they expect to get anything from this campaign. The league schedule was heavily disrupted by the flooding last weekend, so this will be Sparta's first match since before the international break.
If it were any other player, I’d say it was a hopeful long ball that happened to land perfectly in front of Olatunji, but with Panak it feels every bit intentional and precise. What a crime it’ll be if he finishes his career an uncapped international.
Could certainly believe that he at least realized the Salburg LB was just chilling by the corner flag so that it wasn't offside. Definitely thought Sparta would win this, but didn't expect it so lopsided so far, still another half, but looks like a good start to the campaign.
Also going to pretend I didn’t see Rosicky and Sivok wearing matching earrings in the broadcast, but those two have done an unbelievable job turning Sparta around so quickly.
Krejci is making his first start for Girona against PSG… hopefully he got all the errors out of his system during the international break.
Our national team might suck, but at least we’re coefficient cowboys at club level. Well done Sparta.
I was away running errands, but just saw Laci's goal was straight out of a FIFA video game. The differing trajectories of our clubs and national team are amazing, for the first time I almost agree with the jebat repre people on twitter despite not being a fan of any of the big 3.
HT Ludogorets 0 - 1 Slavia Not a full on domination by any means, but a fair score. An away win to start the campaign would be massive for Slavia's potential placement.
Slavia doubled their lead in the 65th minute, have to think that will be enough. Our coefficient continues to grow.
We haven't found a new way to describe what the Czechs 🇨🇿 are doing this season, so we'll just use the same tweet as last week, only with updated numbers:Czech 🇨🇿 teams have won 21 out of 26 matches they played this season in Europe (21-3-2).This is unprecedented.— Football Meets Data (@fmeetsdata) September 25, 2024 To hell with international breaks!
Plzen start with their hardest fixture, so if they some how manage a result we truly are unstoppable, Chance Liga shall immediately become Certainty Liga.
HT Eintracht Frankfurt 1-1 Viktoria Plzen Flattering scoreline as a moment of Sulc brilliance equalized, but Frankfurt really also only one good chance despite controlling play overall.
FT Frankfurt 3 - 3 Plzen I saw it happen, but I can still barely believe they came back again to level things from 2 behind so late. Massive result in there pot 1 away leg, and interesting stat is Plzen haven't lost a regulation match in Europe since 2022
As of right now we have the most coefficient points of any league in Europe for this season. Top 10 in seasonal country coefficient (as of 25 Sep):1⃣ Czechia 🇨🇿 6.1002⃣ Portugal 🇵🇹 5.400--3⃣ France 🇫🇷 4.9284⃣ Germany 🇩🇪 4.8755⃣ Italy 🇮🇹 4.7506⃣ Slovakia 🇸🇰 4.6257⃣ England 🏴 4.5718⃣ Spain 🇪🇸 4.4289⃣ Sweden 🇸🇪 4.250🔟 Austria 🇦🇹 4.200Top 2 will send an extra…— Football Meets Data (@fmeetsdata) September 25, 2024 Actually that tweet is from before the Plzen match, we now have 6.300 for this season, still ahead of Portgual on 5.800. Can't really imagine us moving up any higher on the total coefficient rank (we are like 5 points behind Belgium), but we have a solid cushion to hold the #9 spot through the season as we are 3 points clear of Turkey.