BBC Sport article on UEFA coefficient scoring

[Carver]

If I understand the system correctly(which I may not do!) then it seems the whole thing is geared towards making it easier for the teams who have been in the CL for a number of years. So basically the longer you've been in it, the easier draws you get. It seems they don't like new teams coming along and it takes a long time to be accepted into it as far as UEFA are concerned. Basically the logic is you have to spend a good few years in the Champions League before you give yourself a better chance of winning the thing, looking at how long it took Chelsea and the Rags for example would back this up. Yet how come everybody is expecting us to go and win it in only our first couple of years when the whole competition is geared towards making it harder for us? We got so much stick for our record in it and yet logic would tell you that if we won it this year or next, it would be a huge overachievement.

That's if I've understood correctly how it works of course, if I haven't then just ignore this post!

You are correct Mr P, just to add on to this insight that it's also

in a way to make it easier for certain popular clubs across Europe to reach the latter stages of the competition to make it more saleable for television broadcasting rights.

 

[rossonero]

QED

I like Champions League more than European Cup, it's ten time more interesting and exciting.
That said, let's talk about Atletico.
In the last 4 years they were in Europa League, they won EL twice and now they are in pot 2. I don't think that this is maintains the status quo. PSV have one good year and they are pot 2. Dortmund is pot 3 but they are unlucky (they have the higher rank in pot 3), next year they are pot 2 for sure, maybe even pot 1.
Arsenal is in pot 1 because they always qualifying and always pass the group stage.
This year they can get a really really bad group or an easy one, you can't say they shouldn't be in pot 1 because they are always lucky with the draw.
Finally you were crap every years in Europe (thanks to Mancini in my opinion) so you really can't talk.

I know this might surprise you, but this isn't about our rating... We are where we deserve to be IMO as we haven't been good in the CL, yet. It's about fairness to the "smaller" clubs who have done well in the last season being drip fed co-efficient points...

To have the previous year's runners up ranked way below Arsenal, who manage to scrape in season after season is something of a joke that this particular historical system throws up.

I'd reduce the number of years that qualify to 1, 2 or 3 maximum, although I'd be happy if it was just scrapped tbh.

Also, for me, it's not about what teams we'd like to watch on the telly, it's about giving everyone a fighting/sporting chance. Why should the bigger/traditional clubs get preferential treatment? Arsenal had to play in a qualifying round, again, so how come they get seeded in pot 1, whilst Dortmund go into pot 3?

The reason the FA Cup is/was held in high esteem is because of the chance that "minnows" have by getting good results and not having to play "giants" in every round, which obviously reduces their chances of progression. We call it "The Romance of the Cup"...

But it's modern football's way (The PL, CL and FFPR) to preserve the status quo and keep the big clubs at the top... And for me and a lot of others that stinks!

I recognize that 5 years is too much, could have been 3 or 4.
But as i told, next year Borussia is at least pot 2, unless they manage to lost every game.
"Arsenal had to play in a qualifying round, again"
and that's not a preferential treatment.
And last years Arsenal the team who manage to scrape in season after season lost against Bayern (3-3 due to away goal) with a better result than Juventus (4-0) or Barcellona (7-0) and even Borussia Dortmund (2-1)

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Whether you think it is fair probably depends on which club you support and which country you come from.

It's fair.

It would be more appropriate to say that it was a colour - it's orange, it's lime green, it's puce. But to use a word which implies some kind of honesty or impartiality misses the major point. Uefa need to have, in their jaundiced view, the 'best' teams in the group stage so that their armchair fans can sit at home and watch their 42" HD ready plasma screens from the safety of their own fireside!

A seeding exercise like this is a simple spreadsheet exercise. Platini and his mates have set up a model which delivers the result they want! They then go about attempting to explain how it works, bamboozle a few in the process, and highlight that it is past 'excellence' that gets you a specific coefficient. The employed system is so full of questionable holes that we get comments that 'It can't be changed for the next six years' - mainly because the ones who derive the advantage, eg The Arse, are more than happy for the status quo to be maintained.

Just like much of what Uefa and FICKFUFA touch gives off a malodorous air, the coefficients awarded to individual teams STINK.

 

[supercity88]

I think a better way of doing things would be to add into the coefficient ranking, some points dependent on where the club finished in their respective league. For instance it is all good and well the order of countries being Spain, England, Germany etc but there should then be points dependent on 1st in Spain, 2nd in Spain etc. That way, Arsenal would be affected by the fact they consitently finish 4th in their domestic league. I know they have to go through a qualifying round but again that is seeded giving a level of protection to the traditional champions league clubs. I know the whole system was introduced to ensure the top clubs featured in Europe and whilst it is good to have the group stage I still feel they need to change the seeding. They are never going to get rid of it, but I feel City should be rewarded for their consistently high finishes in the premiership. It should drop to 3 years from 5 years as well. 5 years is too long in football terms, our UEFA Cup run up to the quarters with Hamburg counts for us still which seems a lifetime ago.

I think if you asked most people around Europe they would say they would rather Arsenal than City or Dortmund for example based on what both clubs have achieved over the last three seasons. Arsenal do well through easy groups because technically they suit European football, it is the physical element of the premiership where they let themselves down. I wouldn't put City in Pot 1 by any stretch but more reflection of our domestic performances and those of the other teams, combined with European performances would ensure a more appropriate seeding system if it was reduced to three years worth of scores.

 

[Carver]

I think a better way of doing things would be to add into the coefficient ranking, some points dependent on where the club finished in their respective league. For instance it is all good and well the order of countries being Spain, England, Germany etc but there should then be points dependent on 1st in Spain, 2nd in Spain etc. That way, Arsenal would be affected by the fact they consitently finish 4th in their domestic league.

Aha, light going on in my head here. I have just worked out how the CL pots would look if the country coefficient was taken off. It makes little difference, Zenit would go up to pot 2 and Juve down to pot 3. FC Kobenhaven would go up to pot 3 with Bayer Leverkusen down to pot 4. However, I like your idea and maybe if the country coefficients were not averaged for all the teams but weighted so that the team winning the league gets a bigger share of the country coefficient then it might better reflect the toughness of each league and each position within that league. For me the weighting would be league position 1-4->FA Cup->League Cup->Positions 5+->any qualification given for fair play.

 

[toffee balls]

I think a better way of doing things would be to add into the coefficient ranking, some points dependent on where the club finished in their respective league. For instance it is all good and well the order of countries being Spain, England, Germany etc but there should then be points dependent on 1st in Spain, 2nd in Spain etc. That way, Arsenal would be affected by the fact they consitently finish 4th in their domestic league.

Aha, light going on in my head here. I have just worked out how the CL pots would look if the country coefficient was taken off. It makes little difference, Zenit would go up to pot 2 and Juve down to pot 3. FC Kobenhaven would go up to pot 3 with Bayer Leverkusen down to pot 4. However, I like your idea and maybe if the country coefficients were not averaged for all the teams but weighted so that the team winning the league gets a bigger share of the country coefficient then it might better reflect the toughness of each league and each position within that league. For me the weighting would be league position 1-4->FA Cup->League Cup->Positions 5+->any qualification given for fair play.

Fuck coefficients
It's the fact that with 12 , 16 & 20 years previous experience , Chavs , Tarquins and the Rags will sit in pot 1 for the forseable.

There is no way EUFA will allow a 4th English team in without losing another.

Tough , I know but them's the rules.

Fit in or Fuck off really.

 

[DiscoSteve]

just as turkeys will never vote for Christmas...

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

Having read in the main CL draw thread about some people complaining about Arsenal getting away with just making it through to the Last 16 every season, I decided to try a slightly different coefficient point-scoring system and see how it panned out.

I won't bore you with how it was worked out but essentially I opted for a points system that would reward winning European trophies, would value winning matches(especially knockout stage matches), would value the Europa League more and would award more points to lower ranked teams if they beat higher ranked opposition i.e. in the Champions League Group Stages a Pot 4 team would get more points for beating the Pot 1 team in their group than vice-versa. The rankings are also weighted towards the most recent seasons, so good performances last season mean more points than good performances 5 years ago, which throws up some surprising results:

I tried this out on the Top 50 clubs in the current UEFA rankings, in brackets is the positional change for each club in relation to the UEFA rankings, a + means they've moved up and a - obviously means they've moved down. Firstly I'm going to demonstrate the affect of weighting the current UEFA rankings:

1) FC Barcelona 94.83 (0)
2) Bayern Munich 94.259 (0)
3) Real Madrid 90.63 (+1)
4) Chelsea 86.762 (-1)
5) Man Utd 73.162 (0)
6) Benfica 71.77 (+3)
7) Arsenal 67.162 (-1)
8) Valencia 66.23 (+2)
9) Porto 63.17 (-1)
10) Inter Milan 62.177 (-3)
11) Atletico Madrid 60.03 (0)
12) Schalke 04 59.859 (+3)
13) AC Milan 59.177 (+1)
14) Lyon 55.36 (-2)
15) Shakhtar Donetsk 52.479 (-2)
16) Borussia Dortmund 50.059 (+15)
17) PSG 47.96 (+2)
18) Tottenham 45.962 (+6)
19) Zenit 45.903 (+2)
20) Marseille 44.96 (-4)
21) FC Basel 43.719 (+14)
22) Juventus 43.177 (-2)
23) Man City 41.762 (-1)
24) Rubin Kazan 41.303 (+13)
25) Sporting CP 40.77 (-2)
26) CSKA Moskva 39.803 (-8)
27) PSV 39.764 (+1)
28) Bayer Leverkusen 39.459 (+14)
29) Liverpool 38.562 (-12)
30) Metalist Kharkiv 38.279 (0)
31) Ajax 37.964 (-4)
32) Braga 37.57 (-3)
33) Athletic Bilbao (+11)
34) Dynamo Kyiv 36.479 (-9)
35) Olympiacos 35.3 (+3)
36) FC Twente 35.164 (0)
37) Villarreal 34.03 (-11)
38) Galatasaray 33.996 (+3)
39) Napoli 33.577 (+7)
40) Stuttgart 33.259 (-7)
41) Malaga 33.03 (+18)
42) Lazio 32.977 (+15)
43) Hannover 96 32.659 (+12)
44) Fenerbahce 32.596 (+3)
45) Bordeaux 31.56 (-11)
46) Anderlecht 30.144 (+5)
47) Lille 29.16 (+2)
48) Sevilla 26.83 (-8)
49) FC Kobenhavn 26.44 (-4)
50) Celtic 26.32 (+12)

Now I'm going to take those 50 and use my points system to see what effect it will have. The brackets comparison will refer to the above table:

1) Bayern Munich 125.98 (+1)
2) Chelsea 118.263 (+2)
3) Barcelona 116.891 (-2)
4) Real Madrid 93.432 (-1)
5) Benfica 83.612 (+1)
6) Atletico Madrid 79.075 (+5)
7) Manchester United 74.763 (-2)
8) FC Porto 70.452 (+1)
9) Inter Milan 64.528 (+1)
10) Schalke 04 63.301 (+2)
11) Valencia 61.972 (-3)
12) Borussia Dortmund 61.241 (+4)
13) Arsenal 58.203 (-6)
14) FC Basel 56.471 (+7)
15) Lyon 53.94 (-1)
16) Sporting CP 52.981 (+9)
17) PSG 51.64 (0)
18) Athletic Bilbao 51.022 (+15)
19) Braga 51.01 (+13)
20) Shakhtar Donetsk 49.458 (-5)
21) Tottenham 49.303 (-3)
22) FC Zenit 48.833 (-3)
23) Rubin Kazan 48.483 (+1)
24) AC Milan 47.689 (-11)
25) Metalist Kharkiv 47.199 (+5)
26) PSV 46.186 (+1)
27) Liverpool 46.143 (+2)
28) Marseille 44.63 (-8)
29) Dynamo Kyiv 44.209 (+5)
30) FC Twente 43.796 (+6)
31) Fenerbahce 43.046 (+13)
32) Bayer Leverkusen 42.54 (-4)
33) Olympiacos 42.24 (+6)
34) VFB Stuttgart 41.848 (+6)
35) Manchester City 41.583 (-12)
36) Ajax 40.716 (-5)
37) Villarreal 40.55 (0)
38) Anderlecht 40.43 (+8)
39) Juventus 40.007 (-17)
40) Lazio 38.838 (+2)
41) Hannover 96 38.488 (+2)
42) CSKA Moskva 38.053 (-16)
43) Galatasaray 37.866 (-5)
44) Bordeaux 36.46 (+1)
45) Napoli 35.978 (-6)
46) Malaga 34.933 (-5)
47) FC Kobenhavn 32.488 (+2)
48) Celtic 30.88 (+2)
49) Lille 30.04 (-2)
50) Sevilla 26.492 (-2).

The most notable difference is that we plummet down the rankings, that is mainly because we had such a poor campaign last season and that is the one that is worth the most points. You also see that big clubs like Arsenal, Juventus and AC Milan suffer because they either perenially do just enough to make the knockout stages and no more or in Juve's case had a blip that meant they weren't in Europe. The rankings reward tournament winners like Atletico and Chelsea, whilst boosting smaller teams like Basel who punch above their weight and over-achieve, that gets rewarded with this points system.

To turn it into something a bit more meaningful I decided to use my points system on all 32 CL Group Stage teams and re-pot them. Here are the pots as they would be using my points system:

Pot 1
FC Bayern Munchen GER 125.981 (0)
Chelsea FC ENG 118.263 (0)
FC Barcelona ESP 116.891 (0)
Real Madrid CF ESP 93.432 (0)
SL Benfica POR 83.116 (0)
Club Atletico de Madrid ESP 79.075 (+1)
Manchester United FC ENG 74.763 (0)
FC Porto POR 70.451 (0)

Pot 2
FC Schalke 04 GER 63.301 (0)
Borussia Dortmund GER 61.241 (+1)
Arsenal FC ENG 58.203 (-1)
FC Basel SUI 56.471 (+1)
Paris Saint-Germain FC FRA 51.64 (0)
FC Shakhtar Donetsk UKR 49.458 (0)
FC Zenit RUS 48.833 (+1)
AC Milan ITA 47.689 (0)

Pot 3
Olympique de Marseille FRA 44.63 (-1)
Bayer Leverkusen GER 42.54 (0)
Olympiacos Piraeus GRE 42.24 (0)
Manchester City FC ENG 41.583 (0)
AFC Ajax NED 40.716 (0)
RSC Anderlecht BEL 40.432 (+1)
Juventus ITA 40.008 (-1)
PFC CSKA Moskva RUS 38.053 (-1)

Pot 4
Galatasaray TUR 37.866 (-1)
Napoli ITA 35.978 (0)
Viktoria Plzen CZE 34.753 (0)
Steaua Bucuresti ROM 32.606 (0)
FC Kobenhavn DEN 32.488 (0)
Celtic SCO 30.88 (0)
Austria Wien AUT 11.635 (0)
Real Sociedad ESP 11.032 (0).

There are some notable changes there. Firstly Atletico cruise into Pot 1 and replace Arsenal who drop into Pot 2. Borussia Dortmund, Basel and Zenit move into Pot 2 at the expense of Marseille, Juventus and CSKA Moskva. Anderlecht replace Galatasaray in Pot 3. What's also noticeable is the boundaries between the pots are narrower and only the 2 real newcomers to the CL (Wien & Sociedad) are a long way behind in Pot 4. What this basically means is that the rankings react to the most recent success/failure and therefore a good campaign can move you up 1, maybe 2 pots and a substantial failure could relegate you a pot or two.

I think it works better 2bh, first 2 pots are mean :/.

 

[Vienna_70]

Whether you think it is fair probably depends on which club you support and which country you come from.

It's fair.

No it's not!

How can it be fair that a team that won its domestic league be in a pot below the three teams who finished lower in that league.

It's a system that helps to keep the same teams in the Champions' Leage every season, as that article highlights.

 

[Falastur]

Whether you think it is fair probably depends on which club you support and which country you come from.

It's fair.

No it's not!

How can it be fair that a team that won its domestic league be in a pot below the three teams who finished lower in that league.

It's a system that helps to keep the same teams in the Champions' Leage every season, as that article highlights.

Because if the league is a pushover every season and the same team is guaranteed to win due to the lack of decent opposition, why should that be regarded as a bigger achievement than finishing second in the PL?