Am I alone in thinking this? Before the European season started I thought the Dutch clubs would be terrible. But PSV are top of the table, Feyenoord look like they'll easily qualify, Utrecht and Heerenveen lost but held their own. Ajax seems the only disappointment but overall we've done much better than the Belgians and the Scandinavians, for example. So where do you think the Eredivisie now stands?
Here is what the numbers say. http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/ccoef2005.html http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/crank2005.html The Dutch clubs are ranked 8 in both the 5 year ranking as well as in this season’s table. You have a good chance of overtaking Greece in 7. but it won’t mean much, the 6. place is what you need to get the 3. CL spot . It looks out of reach for this season.
It's not just the statistics that count though. I thought Utrecht would be played off the pitch and made an embarrassment against Zaragoza, but they held their own which I found rather surprising. I like many other Dutch people don't think much of the quality of our domestic league, but now it turns out we might not be as rubbish as we thought.
I feel ya! I am impressed by the achievements of the Dutch UEFA-cup teams so far. They're actually getting somewhere! (And I mean the Dutch 'subtoppers', not Feyenoord, they're just a great team. That was quite a concession for an Ajacied, btw ). What I also like is that AZ, Heerenveen and Utrecht are really challenging the traditional top 3 (another concession). The Dutch league might turn out to become.. exciting!! Nonetheless, I think it's unlikely that we'll pass both Greece and Portugal this season. The 7th spot seems within reach, but I don't know about that darn 6th spot..
The first person I ever heard use the term 'Mickey Mouse league' in respect to the Eredivisie was Jack Van Gelder two or three years back.
Agreement here. I've always respected the Dutch league - goes back to the days of the Ajax powerhouse teams. Looks to me the team has more strength then in a while though.
Interesting link. If you have a close look at the coefficient it becomes obvious that they're complete nonsense. I never knew this, but what happens is that the weighted number of points scored is divided by the number of teams entering the competitions. That means a country like Holland gets punished for having more competitive teams than Russian and the Ukraine. If you look at the total number of points scored (much more sensible) Holland would be in front of both of them. I always suspected all this UEFA counting is rubbish...
So here's the ranking how it should be, based on the points scored: 1. Spain 46.5 2. England 44.0 3. Italy 43.0 4. Germany 40.0 5. France 35.0 6. Netherlands 27.0 seems about right ? 7. Ukraine 26.5 8. Russia 20.0 8. Greece 20.0 10. Belgium 17.5 11 Portugal 17.0 (muito obrigado Ambramovich) good year for Ukraine!
How should a country like, just using a random example, Switzerland gain more spots than ? I think it would be nearly impossible to get more points than a league that has twice as many teams in the competition on a regular basis.
After looking at the rankings again, the effect would probably not as bad as i thought initialy, although i still prefer the current method which increases the chance of the small leagues to get some points.
That's a fair point. But the current system disadvantages leagues which are fairly evenly spread in the sense that lowly teams can reach high standings. So something which, in my eyes, is good (makes for a more interesting league, not like in England where you can predict the top 3 each year without many problems) is being punished.
On the other hand this would reward countries, who have many bad teams but one that it is very good. An example from last season: The Netherlands had a bad season (ok, still better than Germany ), but PSV (ranked 10 among all teams last season) did quite good and got half of the Dutch points (32,5) alone. The Czech Republic, on the other hand, did better on average and had 3 teams that got more points than the second best Dutch team (Ajax, ranked 53). On Average points it was CZE 7.375 vs. NED 5.416, but on total points the Netherlands got more (32,5/six teams vs. 29.5/4 teams), because of one team that did very good.
Also a good point, hadn't thought about this. I suppose the current point system makes sense to distribute places in next year's competitions, but not necessarily to evaluate the relative strengths of the leagues. LIke you said, we probably want to give a slight advantage to weaker leagues anyway.
I agree, it's a good system as long as you take it for what it is. I have yet to see a good and objective system to rank the strenght of leagues (not that i think this would be possible or even needed). But i'd take the 5-years-method over the IFFHS ranking anyday .