Leipzig – RB Leipzig lost the first leg of the round of 16 of the Champions League (0-1 against Real Madrid), as did FC Bayern Munich (0-1 against Lazio Rome), yesterday Borussia Dortmund played 1-1 against Eindhoven. Anyway.
Association coefficient: Germany behind Italy
BVB’s point currently keeps the Bundesliga in second place in the Uefa table, which decides on the allocation of starting places for the European and Champions Leagues in the coming season. It is used by the so-called UEFA association coefficients educated. First is Italy, third England.
The fact that it stays that way is not insignificant for RB Leipzig’s ambitions to take part in the Champions League next season. The lawnball athletes are currently fifth, which would mean, according to the old allocation method for starting places, that they would have to go to the Europa League, because only the top four in the German championship are nominated for the premier class.
Europa League: England has more clubs
But next season everything will be different. Not only will the game format be changed (see below), but the number of participants will also be increased from the current 32 to 36. Two of these places go to the associations with “the best collective performance of their clubs in the European Cup of the previous season” (Uefa). This means that the results of the German clubs as a whole are crucial.
So far, the Bundesliga is just ahead of England, because with Manchester City and Arsenal London, the Premier League still has two clubs in the Champions League knockout phase and the Bundesliga has three. But the race for second place is tight. Especially because all three German clubs are threatened with elimination, while “City” won their first leg in Copenhagen 3-1; Arsenal play in Porto this evening (9pm).
Bundesliga: Freiburg and Frankfurt in qualification
The Premier League also has more representatives in the second competition. While Freiburg currently has to go through the playoffs of the Europa League (0-0 in the first leg in Lens) and only Bayer Leverkusen has qualified directly for the round of 16, England has three teams in West Ham, Brighton and Liverpool FC for the round of the last 16.
In the Conference League, the Bundesliga is still represented by Eintracht Frankfurt, who also still have to qualify for the round of 16 (2-2 in the first leg at Union Saint-Gillois), for which the Premier League representative Aston Villa is already seeded.
RB in the Champions League: new mode
So it would be better if the lawnball athletes finished fourth at the end of the season, so they would certainly qualify for the new Champions League format. Speculating on fifth place on the grid still makes sense at the moment, but for how long…
The best five European Cup associations (As of 21 February 2024):
1. Italy (15,000)
2. Deutschland (14,071)
3. England (13,875)
4. Spain (12,937)
5. France (12,250)
The new Champions League mode:
Instead of eight groups of four as before, there will be one league phase in which there are 36 participants. Each team has eight games against eight different opponents, four at home, four away. To determine the duelists, the teams are first divided into four different draw pots. Each team then meets two teams from each pot, with one game played at home and one away from each pot.
The best eight teams in the league phase qualify directly for the round of 16, while the teams in positions 9 to 24 play a play-off round with two legs in order to advance to the round of 16. For the teams from 25th place onwards, the European Cup season is over and they will not continue to play in the Europa League – as was the case previously.
This season, the first four teams in the German championship took part in the premier class (Bayern, BVB, RB and Union), two in the Europa League (Freiburg and Leverkusen) and one in the Conference League (Frankfurt).
2024-02-22 04:00:47
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