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Massively easier for teams in the Champions Path. Dundalk beat teams from Andorra, Transnistria and the Faroes to qualify. It was a particularly lucky draw but would have been impossible for them in the main path. They haven't even been going that well in the league of Ireland - they're down in mid table about 20 points behind the leaders. Minimum earnings of £3m for them now which is huge.
Whilst Scotland is punching above its weight in the European standings and an extra place is welcome. It creates 2 disadvantages of you collectively not doing so well.
The points gained in next season will now be divided by 5 and not 4
Seedlings who go in at a higher level ie 3rd quality round, could crash out at the first time of asking against higher opposition. That would mean less chance of picking up points.
There's potentially European football for the teams that finish fourth and fifth this season but it will still be very difficult for either of those two teams to reach the group stages. The big opportunity is for the team that finishes third, potentially guaranteed group stage European football. Hopefully that might be us but Aberdeen will be hard to overcome for third.
Well love 'em, or, yes, hate 'em, but Rangers have propelled us up 2 places to 12th, only a fraction of a point behind Ukraine. We've now eclipsed 2016-2017, and when you take away everybodys points from that season, we're sitting 8th.
This season we're 3rd, behind England in 2nd and......Israel 1st. Looks like you need to average 8 points a season to get one of the automatic ECL places, although 2 other qualifiers go in late.
We have 2 more seasons of easy improvement in our coefficient although there will be a slight slow down as we increase to 5 teams next season which will make each positive result worth less. Hopefully Aberdeen and Hibs can make a decent fist of things and the 5th team don't lose to total duffers.
A draw last night for Celtic would have taken us above Ukraine who benefitted this week from their best team beating Real Madrid. Sadly Lennon made an erse of choosing and setting up his team in the 1st half and the game was gone.
As I checked the scores from last night and saw that The Rangers had won yet again, my first thought was, "Woohoo! Our co-efficient has got even better.".
It's important for the standing of the Scottish League in Europe and indeed the World.
When next season starts the Scottish League will be Top 10 in the UEFA coefficient ahead of the much heralded Belgians.
A good coefficient almost guarantees European football every year for Hibs in the medium term. It probably makes it easier for us to persuade foreign players to come to Hibs & Scotland to develop their career etc. and probably makes it easier to attract investors and sponsors to Hibs and Scottish football.
Not quite sure what my stance on the new conference league is yet.
The ugly sisters will get the top two spots but this reads as if there will be three other spots up for grabs. One for winning the SC and two others in this new Europa League format for 3rd and 4th (definitely achievable this season :thumbsup:). But still a couple of unanswered questions here:
1) Do the winners of the rescheduled 2019-20 SC get a place in Europe as well? Or just winners of the 2020-21 SC?
2) What happens to the SC winners place if they have already qualified for Europe? Would that go to 5th in the league?
Possibly. But I believe on the current system we would've been close to cup winner (or likely 3rd place) getting straight into the Europa League group stage.
Which is a shame for us/Aberdeen to miss out on.
Can't help but think the new format is the suit the bigger teams rather than clubs like us.
But The Rangers and Celtc progressing in Europe means they make even more money, and increases the gap between the top two and the rest of the clubs even further.
Plus I think you're overplaying how much it benefits the rest of the clubs. We'll basically have a couple of games in the early qualifying rounds against minor teams every couple of seasons and, as usual, get put out as soon as we meet the first half decent side.
https://kassiesa.net/uefa/files/2021-24-uefa-club-competitions-scheme.png
Interesting link.
To me it looks designed to a) make the Europa League a more elite competition b) keep clubs from the bigger leagues in Europe for longer c) keep champions from smaller leagues in Europe for longer
Must be Shirley. Can't see a scenario whereby Scotland are granted five places in Europe but drop to four places just cos the Cup winners have already qualified through the league.
Or are they going back to the Cup runners-up getting that place given that the Cup winners have been given a higher ranking than 3rd/4th in the league? Hope not.
The gap between the old firm and the rest is already unbridgeable so that's not really an issue. Perhaps they will throw the other Scottish teams a few extra crumbs.
On the other point Hibs should get European football most seasons from now on with the addition of the 5th place and most seasons it will be in the third tournament which might allow us to enjoy it for an extra couple of rounds before we meet someone decent and get turfed out. Sadly for us fans, it will take a long time for the air industry to get back to pre covid levels and accordingly air travel will be expensive in the meantime which will stop many of us from going to the away games.
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