So the draw for the first stage of both the Champions League and the UEFA Cup are just around the corner, and with that in mind I figured I might as well fire up a thread to follow our six European campaigners, as measured by the deliciously number-crunchy UEFA coefficient. If you need background info about what this is or how it's calculated, go to Bert Kassies' unparalleled site. But assuming the rest of us know what this is about, here are a few things to watch out for this year: --Where we're at. Portugal currently sits sixth in the UEFA overall standings, which take into account the current year's performance and the past four years. We're well behind the big three leagues (Italy, Spain, England) as well as France, and virtually tied but just behind Germany. We lie ahead of, well, everyone else, by a margin of at least 3.5 points. Sixth place entitles us to two automatic CL spots, one third-round CL qualifier, and three UEFA cup first-round spots. We also get a couple Intertoto places that we didn't opt to use this year. --Chasing Germany. (Originally I had this titled "Chasing Germany and France", but the latter are about eight points ahead of us, so that's not going to happen). As things stand now, we're a scant .019 points behind them. This means we could easily catch them this year if we peform well and they don't. --Looking out below. There are a few teams that could pass us with a decent year. We currently stand about 3.5-4.5 points ahead of Romania, Russia, and Holland. Bad year for us, good year for them and they could take us over in the standings by year's end. --Preparing for the drop. So right now we're fairly well situated to hold at sixth, and could even take over Germany for fifth if things go well. But after that, when next year starts, things could well get ugly. The 02/03 year was one of our best ever--which means that when that score drops out of consideration as of the beginning of the 07/08 year, we're going to lose a LOT of points relative to lots of teams around us. That's going to hurt a lot: we're going to lose 1.5 points relative to Germany; a whopping 8.6 points to Romania; 7.1 points to Russia; 4.6 points to Holland; and 6.5 points to Ukraine. Thus any gains we make this year are going to be temporary, in other words. --A silver lining. The above point sounds dire but may not actually be that bad at all. The reason we racked up lots of UEFA points in 02/03 and 03/04 was not only that we had great years in Europe but also that we only had four teams in European competition. This means that the UEFA coefficient--which is the average score of all teams in Europe--was relatively higher than in the years starting in 04/05 when we had two more teams, each of whom crapped out of the UEFA Cup, earning almost no points. So if we get knocked down a couple pegs, that may not be the worst thing in the world. It could just mean that we end up with four teams in Europe again, and that would mean, well, that we could start moving up the ladder again. Oh well. Anyway, with three teams in the CL for the first time, it should be an exciting year. But in addition to the big three, if Portugal is going to have a decent year we're also going to have to see some decent work from Braga, Nacional Funchal, and Vitoria Setubal so they don't drag the coefficient down.
CL draw Group B: Inter Milan; Bayern Munich; Sporting Lisbon; Spartak Moscow Group G: Arsenal; FC Porto; CSKA Moscow; Hamburg Group F: Manchester United; Celtic; Benfica; FC Copenhagen These are pretty middle of the road draws. Sporting's appears the toughest to me. Overall, we could have done worse--no one wanted to be in the Barca/Chelsea group of death--but with that exception none of the groups seem unusually easy or hard to me. UEFA Cup draw tomorrow.
UC draw Braga v. Chievo Verona V. Setubal v. Heerenveen Nacional v. Rapid Bucharest This is a pretty tricky draw--all three of these opponents are credible.
Great start to the European season today: Sporting CP 1-0 Inter Milan. Golaco from Caneira for SCP, Vieira sent off for Inter. Inter got one shot off the entire second half. It's early yet but there's no better way to start than with a strong win against the group favorite. On the other hand, Bayern looked very strong against Spartak, so rumors of their demise may have been exaggerated. So the 2 points for a win divided by six total teams means we added .333 points today, which in addition to our previous 1.75 gives us 2.083 total. Now we've leapfrogged Liechtenstein!
*Yawn* 180 minutes of soccer, two Portuguese teams involved, and not a single goal for anyone. FCK 0-0 Benfica; Porto 0-0 CSKA Moscow. Both are disappointing results, Porto's more so than Benfica's because they were the home side. Ultimately though, five points off three games isn't too bad. And with the two draws, we add .333 point to our previous coefficient total of 2.083 for a total of 2.486. We'll have an early sense of where this all leaves us after tomorrow's UEFA Cup games, which I'm significantly more concerned about.
We've gained a little ground on Germany, but Romania continues to catch up. Steau's thrashing of Kiev today was a bit shocking. It took us 3 matches to equal the coefficient points Romania got in that match. The Rapid/Nacional matches are going to be very crucial. If we can get at least one team into the UEFA Cup group stage, we should be able to solidfy 6th place again.
Romania's performance last year and so far this year has been nothing short of shocking. Their advantage is that all three of their teams have done well so far, while we have three credible teams in the mix along with three weaker ones. If Romania does shoot up the rankings past us, though, I'm fairly confident they'll fall right back down because as soon as they get 5-6 spots in European competition their lack of depth will be exposed. I'm not even sure the other Bucharest teams besides Steaua can make a decent showing.
Early results in and they're not bad. Braga 2-0 Chievo Verona, Rapid Bucuresti 1-0 Nacional. Braga is well-positioned to go through to the crucial next stage while Nacional will have to have a great game in Madeira to do the same. The critical match will be later between V. Setubal and Heerenveen. Setubal really needs a home result to help out our long-term coefficient goals.
Final result not good, Setubal gets smoked 0-3 to Heerenveen in Portugal. Looks like they're headed out for sure. Need Braga to hold on and Nacional to do some magic. A win and two losses on the day means a .333 more points in addition to our previous 2.486 for a total of 2.819.
Well either way we are currently in 5th in the country rankings (not including Braga's win, Shalke 04's and Eintracht's wins, Leverkusen's and Hertha's ties) Germany has 7 teams! atleast 2 of which have lost in the CL so yeah, guess were still in 6th.
How did you get 2.819 points. By my calculations we have 1.733 points on the season. Benfica has earned 1.5 points against Austria Vienna plus 3 for making the group stage plus 1 for their draw against Copenhagen for a total of 5.5. Sporting has 2 points for their win against Inter. Porto has 1 for their draw against CSKA. Braga has 2 for beating Cheivo. Total = 10.5 points divided by six teams in Europe = 1.733 not 2.819 Please correct me if I'm wrong I'd prefer the 2.819.
Porto and Sporting also get three points for making the group stage (you don't need to qualify to get the three points). So we have 16.5/6 = 2.75 (I did the math wrong yesterday). Bert Kassies' site has updated stats and explanations of all the rules. @GoodDead, we're currently behind Germany this year by .035, which means we're lagging behind them by a total of .054 points (they started .019 ahead of us). But the concern is that if we lose two of our UEFA Cup teams (as now seems likely) while they qualify most of theirs through (also likely--none of them lost yesterday) then it's going to be hard for us to win enough games to keep pace with them. Plus, they only have one more team in Europe than we do.
Thanks for the correction, I didn't realize that teams that directly qualified for the group got the bonus 3 points.
Two games on Tuesday, two losses, no additional UEFA points, no need to do any math: Arsenal 2-0 Porto Benfica 0-1 Man United So much for our great run against English teams. More concerning, Porto and Benfica have played 360 minutes of Champions League football between them and scored a total of 0 goals. In fact, all Portuguese teams have played 450 minutes in the CL proper so far this year, and their total of goals stands at 1. Not a good sign.
Also not a good sign is that Russia, Holland and Romania (!) are hot on our trails in the coefficient standings, too...
Decent away draw in Moscow for Sporting Lisbon: Spartak 1-1 SCP. Draws on the road are always a good result, but this was a winnable game considering how bad the opponent looked against Bayern a couple weeks back. Add one-sixth of a UEFA point to our total; we'll see where that puts us after the rest of today's results.
Up to the teams in the UC to get points. Setubal is hardpressed to win let alone advance so a draw would be an ok result. Nacional maybe able to win but will probably be eliminated on aggregate. Hopefully Braga win's but right now I just want to see them through to the group stage.
Setubal drew 0-0 at Heerenveen to earn a small consolation point, though they were ultimately eliminated on aggregate, 3-0. The Chievo-Braga tie is on a knife's edge. Chievo leads 1-0 late but Braga remains ahead on agg, 2-1. I'd be happy for the game to remain this way because it would earn Braga a coveted spot in the next round. Nacional is ahead, 1-0, in Madeira against Rapid Bucharest, so the tie is now even at 1-1 with no away goals. An away goal by Rapid would be the death blow, but there's certainly hope for advancement here.
*()^&%&@!# Chievo scores to level the tie 2-2, now in the 83d minute. Now both that tie and Nacional's are even.
Braga scores!!!!!!!!!! Chievo 2-1 Braga ---> Braga leads 3-2 on agg with a critical away goal. Unless Chievo can manage two more goals in the second half of extra time, Braga goes through to the next round (admittedly with a loss, but I'll take it!). And somewhat confusingly UEFA is reporting that Rapid won on away goals but that can't be right because they didn't score one. Update: now all sources are reporting that Rapid got an away goal. Livescore says it happened in ET, UEFA says it happened within the first 90', but either way Nacional's hosed.
It's a good question. I don't know the answer but I think we're credited with the result AET. I hope that's not right because we could really use the points and now Rapid's reversed the result, scoring twice in ET to take a 2-1 lead. That would mean 1 point on the day for Portuguese teams and only Braga through to the next round.
So Nacional will get a total of zero points for their short-lived "win" in the first 90 minutes yesterday, which ended up being a 2-1 loss AET. That means that in a total of six games this week, Portuguese teams earned a grand total of 2 UEFA points, which adds a mere .333 to our overall total. And while we can't go down in absolute terms (you can only gain not lose points), we're relatively weaker in comparison to the field as a whole. In terms of the 2006-07 season, we now sit fifteenth, behind just about every major footballing power (and some nontraditional ones like Romania and Bulgaria) except Holland. Overall, Germany has widened their lead, and Romania is breathing down our necks. Even if they don't catch us this year they're sure to leapfrog us at the outset of next, since their 02/03 season was dismal and ours was great (and it will no longer be factored into the standings next season). The current overall standings: Germany...........38.506 Portugal............37.749 Romania............36.498 With only four teams left in Europe, it's going to be harder to accumulate points. Unless some team steps up and pulls off a great run in Europe, it could be a grim year.