Tottenham and Manchester United are currently in the Premier League’s fifth-place battle (Getty)
The Premier League looks on course to secure an extra Champions League place after Thursday night’s results in Europe tipped the balance in UEFA’s coefficient rankings.
Italy currently sit top of UEFA’s coefficient table and are set to secure one of the two European Performance Spots which are up for grabs.
England and Germany are locked in the battle for the final spot and with West Ham, Liverpool, Brighton and Aston Villa all winning their fixtures, England’s score was given a huge boost on Thursday.
Germany still have Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich remaining in the Champions League, while Bayer Leverkusen are in the Europa League quarter finals after their comeback against Qarabag, but they would need all three sides to go deeper in Europe to stop Germany being overtaken by England in UEFA’s coefficient table.
How does it work?
For the 2024/25 Champions League campaign, there will be an expanded tournament with 36 teams. That is four more than currently, with two of those places to be filled by so-called ‘European Performance Spots’.
Those places will be assigned to the associations with the best collective performance – that is to say, their coefficient – by their clubs in Europe this season. For the Premier League, who already get four Champions League spots, that would mean fifth place also qualifies.
But English clubs have performed rather poorly this season, with both Manchester United and Newcastle eliminated in the group stages of the Champions League, while their Europa League and Europa Conference League representatives actually missed out on additional coefficient points by qualifying as group winners and skipping the Play-Off round.
Wins are rewarded with two coefficient points and a draw is worth one point, with nothing for a defeat, while there are also bonus points for participation at various stages of the competitions. The tally is then divided by the number of clubs an association has competing in Europe to create a coefficient average.
The UEFA coefficient table…
Following the Europa League and Europa Conference League results on March 14, UEFA’s coefficient table now looks like this…
Italy – 17.714
Germany – 16.357
England – 16.250
France – 14.750
Spain – 14.437
AC Milan are in the Europa League quarter finals (Getty)
Italy | Teams remaining in Europe: 4/7 | Current coefficient score: 17.714
Italy remain in a strong position despite Napoli and Inter’s exits from the Champions League, as they still have AC Milan, Atalanta and Roma in the Europa League, while Fiorentina are in the Europa Conference League.
Bayer Leverkusen sealed a brilliant comeback against Qarabag FK (Getty)
Germany | Teams remaining in Europe: 3/7 | Current coefficient score: 16.357
Germany’s hopes of hanging on to second place in UEFA’s coefficient table took a dent as Freiburg were dumped out of the Europa League by West Ham.
But the Bundesliga still has three strong representatives left in Europe in Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen.
Liverpool are one of five Premier League sides remaining in Europe (Getty)
England | Teams remaining in Europe: 5/8 | Current coefficient score: 16.250
England look poised to overtake Germany in UEFA’s coefficient table after a strong performance in Europe this week.
Arsenal joined Manchester City in the Champions League quarter final, while in the Europa League, West Ham and Liverpool are in the last eight of the competition.
Aston Villa also thumped Ajax 4-0 to reach the Europa Conference League quarter final.
PSG’s Kylian Mbappe put Real Sociedad to the sword (Picture: Getty)
France | Teams remaining in Europe: 3/6 | Current coefficient score: 14.750
Paris Saint-Germain are France’s sole representatives in the Champions League, while Marseille are in the last eight of the Europa League.
In the Europa Conference League, Lille have made the quarter final.
Real’s win over Leipzig actually boosted England’s hopes (Picture: Getty)
Spain | Teams remaining in Europe: 3/8 | Current coefficient score: 14.437
Spain will need a strong performance in the Champions League to stand any chance of pipping France, England and Germany to second place in the UEFA coefficient table.
Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Barcelona make up Spain’s three remaining Champions League hopefuls.
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