Hopes of an extra Champions League place for Premier League clubs were boosted on Thursday evening with a trio of big victories.
Liverpool were emphatic winners over Sparta Prague, as were Aston Villa against Ajax, but it was West Ham United’s thrashing of Freiburg that was significant.
England’s Premier League has been in direct competition with Germany’s Bundesliga for the second of the two extra Champions League places, so David Moyes’ side knocking out a German opponent was significant.
That is because those extra places — created through the expansion of the Champions League from 32 teams to 36 — are rewarded based on each nation’s coefficient, which is determined by how clubs perform in the three European club competitions.
Italy’s Serie A has a strong grip on one of the places, but last-16 defeats for Lazio, Napoli and Inter Milan in the Champions League have affected their progress, especially as England and Germany have two quarter-final representatives apiece: Arsenal and Manchester City from the Premier League; Bayern Munich and Dortmund from the Bundesliga.
So, how has the conclusion of the last-16 ties changed the outlook? The Athletic explains below.
Why are there extra Champions League places on offer?
The Champions League will expand at the beginning of next season from the current 32-team format to 36 teams. The Athletic has explained the format change in great detail, which you can find below.
Of those extra four group-stage places, one will be given to the nation that finishes this season fifth in UEFA’s association club coefficient ranking (currently France) and one will be earned by a lesser domestic champion from somewhere across the continent through the qualification rounds. The remaining two will go to the nations whose clubs perform best across this season’s European competitions.
These latter two are being called the ‘European Performance Spots’ by UEFA and could lead to the fifth-placed Premier League team making it directly into next season’s adapted group stage.
Post-draw update!
🏴 Very tough draw for England, especially for City/Arsenal/Villa. Chance of extra Champions League ticket next year drops by 🔻12%!which is good news for:
🇮🇹 Neutral draw, but still increased chances of 2%!
🇩🇪 Good draw (+0.2 xPts) sees them increase by 10%! https://t.co/OTRZVQYfbe pic.twitter.com/dK7qfrkbA9— Nils Mackay (@NilsMackay) March 15, 2024
Which nations are leading the race for an extra Champions League place?
Heading into the final international break of the season, it is Italy and Germany who lead the way in the coefficient table.
But England, boosted by a great proportion of their teams left in Europe, are hot on the heels of the two leaders.
| Pos | Nation | Coefficient points | Active clubs |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Italy |
17.714 |
4/7 |
|
2 |
Germany |
16.357 |
3/7 |
|
3 |
England |
16.250 |
5/8 |
|
4 |
France |
14.750 |
3/6 |
|
5 |
Spain |
14.437 |
3/8 |
Manchester United and Newcastle United being eliminated in the Champions League group stage hurt England’s chances, but the remaining teams are collectively going strong.
Of the six teams that made it into the knockout stage, only Brighton & Hove Albion were beaten over two legs and they were able to add a couple of coefficient points to their tally by winning 1-0 against Roma in the second leg.
Arsenal’s penalty shootout win against Porto and Manchester City’s elimination of Copenhagen was supported by comfortable second-leg wins in the Europa League for Liverpool and, most importantly, West Ham. In the Europa Conference League, favourites Aston Villa thrashed Ajax 4-0 to keep their silverware hopes alive.
Aston Villa are favourites to win the Europa Conference League (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
But still, the Premier League is behind Serie A and the Bundesliga in the hunt for an extra Champions League place.
Fortunately for Italy, failure in the Champions League was not contagious. The bleeding caused by Inter, Lazio and Napoli’s eliminations was stemmed by Atalanta, Milan and Roma progressing in the Europa League, and Fiorentina doing the same in the Europa Conference League.
All four of those teams will harbour ambitions of going all the way and are among the favourites to lift the trophies of UEFA’s secondary and tertiary club competitions.
Germany, while still ahead of England, were dealt a potentially critical blow in their run for an extra Champions League place on Thursday evening. Freiburg’s aggregate lead against West Ham was overturned and they joined RB Leipzig, Eintracht Frankfurt and Union Berlin in being eliminated.
West Ham overturned a 1-0 first-leg defeat to beat Freiburg 5-1 on aggregate (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
The Bundesliga’s hopes now rest on the continued progression of Bayern Munich and Dortmund in the Champions League, and league leaders Bayer Leverkusen — who survived an almighty scare against Qarabag — in the Europa League.
Spain’s La Liga is the best-represented league in the Champions League, but the performance of their teams in the other two European competitions leaves them with the almost impossible task of breaking into the top two places.
Similar is true of Ligue 1 in France, where Paris Saint-Germain, Marseille and Lille will struggle to compete with the remaining might of the Serie A and the Premier League.
What do Premier League clubs need from here?
The path to an extra Champions League place is getting clearer, but it is still not totally transparent.
Put simply, the English clubs need to make it as far in their respective European competitions as possible while hoping their German counterparts are eliminated.
And the Champions League and Europa League draws have opened up that direct possibility. Arsenal have been drawn against Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals of the former, while it is West Ham vs Bayer Leverkusen in the latter.
A pair of English wins in those ties would mean an extra Champions League place would be guaranteed, but two defeats would burden the Premier League’s other European representatives with a much greater responsibility.
For Germany to stay in with a chance of finishing above England in the coefficient table, at least one Bundesliga team will need to make it into a semi-final.
Elsewhere, Manchester City face Real Madrid for the third successive year and, having won 5-1 on aggregate last season, will be confident of progressing to a fourth straight semi-final. They may have to defend their Champions League crown to secure an extra place at the top table for the Premier League.
In the third of UEFA’s club competitions, Aston Villa are favourites to lift the Europa Conference League and are going well so far. They have been rewarded for their last-16 thumping of Ajax with a quarter-final meeting with French side Lille.
Who would benefit from the potential extra Champions League place?
More progress in the Europa Conference League might be doubly beneficial for Unai Emery and his players as they are one of the sides who could finish fifth.
In fact, they are now the most likely team to finish fifth after a 4-0 home defeat to closest challengers Tottenham on Sunday. Emery’s side are clinging onto fourth place but their conquerers are two points behind them with a game in hand.
Tottenham thrashed Aston Villa at Villa Park (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
It feels like Manchester United have left themselves with too much to do, with back-to-back defeats to Fulham and Manchester City surely consigning them to another Europa League campaign.
Here is Opta’s prediction for the fifth-place finisher:
Tottenham have a greater probability of finishing in fourth, at 61.1 per cent.
How can coefficient points be accrued?
As the above chart shows, there are plenty of points left on offer. With fewer teams left in Europe to win them, they are even more valuable and will have a greater difference to the overall ranking.
The coefficient that contributes to that ranking is worked out as an average rather than a total to cancel out the advantage gained by nations with more representatives in Europe. The equation is simple: the number of points accumulated by teams in a nation divided by the number of competing teams.
So, as there were eight English teams competing in Europe at the start of the season, each English team’s points are divided by eight.
Here is how each country accumulates those points:
UCL = UEFA Champions League, UEL = UEFA Europa League, UECL = UEFA Europa Conference League
- 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)
(Top photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images)
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