Looks like we're going to have a very tight race this year (and the following year aswell) in UEFA's coefficient ranking. With La Liga's 1st place secured for the upcoming years, Bundesliga, EPL and Serie A will fight for the remaining 2 spots in the top 3 (aka, they'll fight for the right to send 4 teams to the CL).

Now, I'm sure most of you guys are familiar with the way these rankings work. But for those who aren't, I'll copy paste Wikipedia for you:



Now, let's look at what we have right now in the top 4:



(I know, it's in German, but I think it's pretty clear... the GT and NA columns might be harder to understand; it just shows the total teams that were sent to Europe and the teams that remain in CL and EL.

As you can see, right now we have:

2. Bundesliga - 66.749
3. Pemier League - 65.034
4. Serie A - 60.605

It may seem like a solid distance between 2nd/3rd and 4th, but it's not. In the current ranking, season 2011/12 is taken into account, but it won't be the case next year (since it's a 5 year cycle, not 6). As we can see on the table, England had a much better season than Italy that year, meaning that they have to perform much better than Italy to keep their current 5 point lead. In fact, as things are now, if every league got the same amounts of points this season, next year's ranking will look like this:

2. Bundesliga - 51.499
3. EPL - 49.784
4. Serie A - 49.248

The gap between 3rd and 4th is gone. And the following season Bundesliga could be the one under pressure as you can see on the table, with all 3 leagues at ~33.XXX points if they were to have on par performances.

Now, here's were things get tricky. Because England has sent 8 teams to Europe this season (their standard 4 CL teams, 3 EL teams and an extra EL spot for West Ham as a reward for fair play), the points english teams get will be divided by 8. Meanwhile Italy will have their points divided by 6. It's a significant handicap for the prem, especially now that Shoton and WHam are out. Serie A has lost Samp, but that shouldn't have such a significant impact.

Will this be a decisive factor an make the EPL lose their 4th CL spot?
If so, how do you think it would impact the (at least on paper) world's best league? It would definetely be a huge blow for clubs like Arsenal and Liverpool that lack the financial potential of Chelsea and the Manchester teams...

I think it might actually help the EPL in the long run. Maybe after they lose their top 3 position they'll learn to play two egged ties in the CL and stop shunning the EL. I don't players will stop wanting to play in England just because they will have less presence in the CL for 1 or 2 years tbh.

Meanwhile, I'm not sure Italy will be able to pull off another great season, so I wouldn't be surprised if they don't overtake the prem. And if they do, they won't last long there.

This post was edited by zarkadon on Aug 27 2015 06:06pm

epl obviously

not a single person wants more bundesliga trash rolling over asking to get raped

English Premier League is literally finished and i mean that.

It would be a complete joke for any other league to get it but epl.. Anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves .

Epl should have 5 or 6 really with United Chelsea city arsenal Spurs and liverpool being 6 teams that are miles ahead of the teams they are competing against in the 4th spot of serie a and bundesliga

The cl probably knows this... If the epl gets 3 the cl will
Lose viewers and therefore revenue .. Cus who would rather watch a random farmer team than some of the biggest teams in the world ? The fan base of even liverpool and Spurs (5th and 6th) is a huge compared to those teams even in 3rd and 4th of serie a and bundesliga

Basel shitted on almost all you listed, mate. Several years.
Liverpool was embarassed by a bulgarian Ludogorets.
Arsanal were outplayed by anderlecht.

The ammount of bullshit in your post is tremendous

obviously i'd also prefer more premier league teams over more serie a teams and for anyone who isn't german ofc over bundesliga too...

that being said, people complaining about it and making arguments about fan bases and attractiveness of the squads and big names are clearly ignoring the simple fact that those spots are distributed by performance - not by marketing success...
so invest those oil and tv billions smartly and it won't even be a challenge... simple as that...

performance of german teams?

it's a nothing league with Bayern unchallenged all year

Okay let's base this on 14/15 4th positions of the 3 leagues .. Who would you rather watch in the cl ( supposedly top level football competition)

A) manchester United (Forbes second most valuable club in the world)
bayern Leverkusen
C) Fiorentina

Not that the Forbes reference is relevant but it's not even close at all.. Anyone with a brain would pick United ... Based on purely footballing reasons

E/
You could even throw the Spanish 4th spot in (Valencia) and it would still be United by a million miles based purely on performances and football reasons

This post was edited by aswethegods on Aug 27 2015 06:37pm

Really ? The who would you rather watch argument ?
I'd rather watch the top 3 teams in top 3 leagues, which obviously puts Utd out of discussion.

And if you want to argue any of those 4th spot teams mentioned would be better based on "football performances" if United played either Valencia,Fiorentina,Leverkusen you would not find a bookie in the world that wouldnt have United as favourite .