Interesting week. Results weren't exactly stellar: 0W-3D-1L. Meh. But all three draws were away, which is kind of impressive, though Benfica blew a 3-0 lead at Besiktas to end up 3-3. That one is ouch. And Sporting again gave up a late goal to end up blowing a possible good result to Real Madrid, 1-2. Alas what could have been. That said, here's the situation going into the final stage of games. Good news is that three of the four teams are in good positions to qualify, and the fourth (Sporting) is well-situated to advance to the Europa League in third place. Specifically: Porto's draw against FCK was neither great nor terrible. They too are a slender two points ahead of the Danes in second place, but they have to host group leaders, already-qualified Leicester City, while FCK goes to Belgium to play group whipping-boys, winless Club Brugge. Porto qualifies with a win, but if they get less than a win, they're out with a FCK win. Both teams draw, then Porto advances. No chance here of being tied on points, which is good for Porto because they have a worse goal differential than FCK. Benfica could have clinched qualification from their group had they not blown their three-goal lead in Turkey, and now instead they sit one narrow point ahead of Besiktas. They play group leader Napoli at home next game, while Besiktas has to go play Dynamo in Kyiv. This group has been strange and random enough that I have no idea who has what edge. I guess the upside is that the worst case scenario for Benfica is that they qualify for the Europa League; with only two points, Kyiv can't catch up with anyone else in the group. Sporting again screws the pooch against Real, though this time they only blew the chance to draw, not to win. That said, though, they still need to not lose in Warsaw to get to the Europa League. By nabbing a surprise point off Real in Warsaw, the Poles would advance with four points if they could beat Sporting. Anything less than that and Sporting is in the EL. Braga is second in their group, but only fractionally ahead of Gent (6 points to Gent's 5). And Gent is away to Konyaspor while Braga gets group leader, undefeated Shakhtar Donetsk, at home. So a win and Braga is through, but anything less than a win for Braga, and a Gent win sends them out. Good news tho is that they have a 5 GD advantage on Gent, so if Gent draws at Konyaspor and Braga loses by as much as 0-4, they will still advance. TL;DR version: best case scenario is two teams in CL, two in EL; worst case is two in EL. Lots to play for, should be an interesting set of games.
Lets hope we can pull through, because Russia is pulling away in 6th place in the coefficient rankings and we're in serious risk of losing a CL spot in 2018/19
@fdasilva: Yep. Doesn't seem like we're having that bad a season but the numbers say otherwise, at least relatively. We're in 13th place overall, on only 5.75 points, well behind Russia, who have 7.2 and are seventh. The bonus points Benfica and Porto could get for qualifying in the CL would really help, though they could also help a lot with deep runs in the EL. Either way we need all four teams to keep moving forward if we want any chance of catching Russia.
In a weird but basically good outcome, Benfica loses at home to Napoli, 1-2, but still advances because Dynamo crushes Besiktas in Ukraine, 6-0 (!). So no points for the win but 5 points for advancing to the next round, pushing Portugal's UEFA coefficient up to 6.583, good for 10th but within a point of Belgium in 6th. If Porto can win tomorrow to clinch their place in the next round, that would do a lot for the coefficient. But man, Benfica needs to be on better form in the R16 or they're not going to help on the points front at all after this.
The 3-3 draw at Besiktas is the source of all this. The team was more or less on cruise control since the Napoli loss in Italy, right up until the end of that first half. That game completely dispirited them, and definitely hit at their confidence. They have not played the same since. Likely the worst time to play Sporting, although that will be largely dependent on how they do tomorrow. Any team, particularly one playing at home, that can draw Real Madrid in the Champions League, whilst putting 3 past them, and another 4 past Dortmund, can definitely sneak a result in the proper circumstances. Porto I expect to go through. I believe the last minute Braga win to provide enough, immediate motivation to beat a B Team Leicester. Wouldn't be so sure had they tied that game.
Benfica have to improve from this game but also there is a very good chance of getting someone we can 'realistically' beat these are the possible opponents right now, Arsenal, Barcelona, Atletico, Monaco, Leicester (and Napoli who we can't play), I would say only Barcelona is a team that is on a different level. https://www.publico.pt/2016/12/07/d...s-os-possiveis-adversarios-do-benfica-1753965
So two teams in the Round of 16 and one team out of Europe. Wonder how that will play out for the rankings.
Yeah, today was a very very mixed bag. Great news that Porto schooled Leicester City, and the 5-0 suggests they are rounding back into form, which gives some degree of promise for the CL R16. But holy crap, Sporting. Losing at Legia Warsaw? That's about as low as you can go. But you can't say they didn't deserve to go out of Europe--not only because they managed to lose to a team that had a -16 goal difference but mainly because they failed to do what Legia did, namely take a point off Real or Dortmund. If Sporting had managed to get just one point out of those four games they'd be in the EL right now. So what this all means short term is that we've got two teams in the CL, and that's great. Lots of bonus points means we jetted up the UEFA rankings all the way to 6th in Europe, ahead of Russia (fractionally). But without SCP in the EL, that means we're reliant on Braga to get points in that tournament (which historically is where Portugal has gotten more points in the knockout stages)--assuming Braga even qualifies for the R32. A lot is still to be determined: Will Braga qualify, who will FCP and SLB draw, etc. True that they could get some easier teams like Monaco or Leicester City, or even Napoli (who I think Porto could beat even if Benfica couldn't), but it could also be Real, Juve, or Bayern. We'll know a lot more after Friday.
FWIW, good summary of tomorrow's EL matches and permutations: http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/news/newsid=2425783.html Braga are though with a win; or if Gent does not win. Basically, the only way Braga fails to qualify is if they don't win and Gent does. One the one hand, Braga is playing undefeated, untied group leaders Shakhtar, but on the other hand they're playing at home and Shakhtar has nothing to play for. And in terms of the other game, on the one hand Gent gets to play group minnow Konyaspor (one point total) but has to do so in Turkey, which is not the easiest feat.
Beautiful last minute goal by Gent dumps out pathetic Braga that got pimp smacked around at home by Shakhtar. Terrible year for Portuguese teams as it'll be difficult for Porto or Benfica to progress further in the CL. Sporting could have picked up a nice amount of points in the EL smh
Yeah that late goal was a killer. Ouch. Braga got done at home though so they can't really argue too much, they controlled their own destiny but failed. Now with two teams in the CL and no teams in the EL for the first time in who knows how long it's going to be interesting. If Porto or Benfica pulls off a deep CL run it could be all right, but SCP and Braga did not help the cause this week for sure.
That's good. I used to follow these rankings religiously, even used to post in both forums of http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/index.html but just don't care anymore.
Changes are happening to the way coefficient points will be calculated starting in 2018/19. Correct me if I got any of this wrong: In effect, there will be two rankings - one for sporting reasons, one for financial reasons. The first - to determine the teams in Pot 1, will only be calculated based on the points achieved by each club in the previous 5 years. With this, UEFA intends to stop benefitting clubs with little history that come from high ranking countries - for example, Leicester this year who were in Pot 1 because they were English champions, but have very little history. The second - which will determine prize money, will include calculating each clubs history over te last 10 years, and more importantly, the titles won in the past. These will determine bonus points, with more bonus points given to the clubs who have won titles more recently. Here's a table to explain this. Based on this, FC Porto will be the most benefitted by this - based on their two Champions League and two Europa League titles. Benfica will also get bonus points for their two Champions Cup titles in the 60s, while Sporting will have 1 bonus point for their Taça das Taças in 1964. Also these changes mean our clubs will get more money from European competition, since the prize money will be distributed more on merit and recent history and less from TV money. This benefits Portuguese teams who don't make a lot from TV money, as opposed to England for example. The ranking of countries, which determine how many spots each country has for CL / EL won't change (top 4 ranked countries will have 4 CL contenders each) Source: http://www.record.xl.pt/internacion...rto-e-o-clube-portugues-mais-beneficiado.html
Nice win from Benfica over Dortmund, 1-0 but apparently against the run of play http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsle...l#clinical+benfica+punish+profligate+dortmund This situates us 7th overall in Europe on 8.083 points, but until the EL games are played on Thursday we won't have a real sense of how this is shaking out. Good result from Porto v Juve next week is also crucial.
It's official. Portugal loses a CL spot in the 2018/19 season as we drop to 7th in the ranking. Only next season's league champion will qualify for the group stage, with the 2nd place team going to the 3rd preliminary match (not even the playoff) and the other spots go to Europa League. I think that we're not that far from 6th place at least; perhaps if the teams that go to Europa League perform well (considering the points are the same in either CL or EL) we can recover and go back up in the ranking.
We need a Porto/Benfica to go on a run to the Europa cup finals to buy us some points to guarantee a couple of CL spots for a few more years.
Why? To help Sporting get into the Champions League? Those two will be fine, as they always have been. Sporting shot themselves in the leg with absolutely pathetic European campaigns in recent years and will pay the consequences accordingly.