Then it’s your turn, Aston Villa. The future of English European football is in your hands.
Well, yours and Real Madrid’s. And that of Paris Saint-Germain. Oh, and Roma actually.
It turns out that England’s hopes of a further place in European competition next season rest in several hands.
After a difficult week for English clubs in two of the three UEFA club tournaments, none of them can afford a fumble if the nation is to clinch an extra place.
Ahead of the quarter-finals of the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League, Opta gave England a 70.6 per cent chance of winning a two-legged race with Germany and securing a fifth place in the Champions League, which in turn would almost certainly have pushed qualification for other European competitions up to eighth place in the Premier League.
After the quarterfinals, this probability dropped to 1.1 percent.
Perhaps this is an appropriate time for a Jim Carrey meme. “So you’re telling me there’s a chance?”
Well, yes, there is still a chance. But having previously looked almost certain, England now have to thread the eye of a mathematical needle to get it.
Why are there additional Champions League places on offer?
The Champions League will increase from 32 to 36 teams from the start of the 2024-25 season.
Of these four additional places for the group stage, one will be awarded to the league which finishes this season fifth in the UEFA country rankings, which combines the coefficient points accumulated over the last five seasons.
One of these will be won by a national title winner from one of the continent’s lower divisions via the ‘Champions Path’ qualifiers. The other two will be awarded to the leagues whose clubs achieve the best results in this season’s European competitions.
The latter two are called the ‘European performance spots’ by UEFA and could see the fifth-placed Premier League side progress directly into next season’s new group stage.
Which nations are leading the race for an additional Champions League place?
Heading into this week’s quarter-final second leg, Italy were all but assured of an extra place in next season’s Champions League with Germany and England neck and neck (on 16,785 and 16,750 points). .
Atalanta and Fiorentina reaching the semi-finals of the Europa League and Europa Conference League saw Opta give the country a 100% chance of finishing in the top two places in the coefficient table.
One of the places is therefore reserved, leaving Germany and England to compete for the second.
Why were the Champions League quarter-finals so important?
The draw for the round of 16 gave England a clear path to claim the extra place.
If Arsenal had beaten Bayern Munich and Manchester City had beaten Real Madrid, they would have faced each other in the semi-final, ensuring that an English club would qualify for the final.
That should have guaranteed England a fifth place in the Champions League, especially if Atletico Madrid had knocked out Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday.
However, Arsenal and City both went out, while Dortmund overcame a first-leg deficit to advance to the semi-finals with a 5-4 aggregate victory over Atletico.
England will also not be represented in the semi-finals of the Europa League. Liverpool were beaten 3-1 in a two-legged tie against Atalanta, while West Ham United failed to beat Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen, a team who have yet to lose a match in any competition this season.
Villa are therefore the only English club remaining in any of the three competitions and England’s tiny hopes of an extra place rest largely on them.
Is there still a way for England to get an extra place?
That’s true, because 1.1 percent isn’t quite zero, but that’s where the simple math ends.
There are two ways Villa can help England achieve the impossible, but both seem almost impossible.
First of all, we need to explain how the coefficient table is developed.
Places are awarded based on an average of points rather than a total, so countries with more teams in European competitions do not have an advantage over countries with fewer.
Before the semi-finals, England’s average is 17.375 compared to Germany’s 17.928. Villa therefore need to close a gap of 0.553 points on average – which, given the Premier League had eight teams in European competitions this season, means Unai Emery’s side must accumulate at least 4.424 points.
Points are awarded for each two-legged knockout match, with two points for a win and one for a draw. Villa would also earn an extra point to qualify for the Conference League final.
Coefficient points for second legs are based on the result after 120 minutes (i.e. including extra time but excluding penalties).
So, in the unlikely event that the three remaining German teams (Bayern, who will face Real Madrid, Dortmund, who will face PSG and Leverkusen, who will face Roma) lose all six matches – both legs of their respective meetings – Villa would win both matches. would be enough to gain an additional place for England since they would win five points to zero for Germany.
If Villa won the final, they would earn two more points, giving England seven more points in total.
In this scenario, Germany would need to add 0.322 points to their average coefficient, which, considering they had seven teams in Europe this season, means their remaining teams would need 2.254 points – three points in reality.
So even if Villa won both Conference League semi-final matches and then the final, German teams would draw three of their six semi-final matches, even if they were all eliminated in both matches.
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(Top photo: Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images)