Here’s what it means after the end of the first stage of the Champions League.<\/p>\n
ENGLAND<\/p>\n
England is the only country to still have all teams active – and there are nine of them.<\/p>\n
It will be very hard for England to throw it away after bagging 72.50 bonus points from the Champions League final placings.<\/p>\n
But nothing should be completely taken for granted, as England seemed destined to get an EPS slot in 2023-24 only to suffer a terrible set of results in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
While it might seem positive that five English clubs made it directly through to the Champions League round of 16, there is a twist.<\/p>\n
The rival leagues all have teams in the knockout play-off rounds, and those clubs can score points by winning those two-leg ties.<\/p>\n
As a picture of how far England is ahead, German clubs are effectively 17 wins behind, and for the Italian and Spanish it is 20 victories.<\/p>\n
GERMANY<\/p>\n
Only Eintracht Frankfurt have been eliminated, so the Bundesliga is well placed to take an EPS slot alongside England.<\/p>\n
Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Dortmund could pick up more coefficient points in the play-offs.<\/p>\n
SPAIN<\/p>\n
With eight teams in Europe, Spain needed to have a strong campaign.<\/p>\n
Chances were severely damaged by Villarreal’s Champions League elimination. And Athletic Club followed them out of the competition on Wednesday, too.<\/p>\n
While Spain have six teams still active, each win is worth less to the coefficient than those of their rivals for second place.<\/p>\n
ITALY<\/p>\n
Serie A had a slow start but remains in contention despite losing Napoli from the Champions League.<\/p>\n
Atalanta, Inter Milan and Juventus could all add to the tally in the Champions League knockout play-offs.<\/p>\n
PORTUGAL<\/p>\n
Portugal did not really stand a realistic chance of making the top two as soon as Santa Clara were knocked out out of the Conference League in the qualifying rounds.<\/p>\n
Still, they carry on with four teams active but will need all to go very deep to have any chance.<\/p>\n
Benfica can add some coefficient points in February.<\/p>\n
POLAND<\/p>\n
It will come as a surprise to many to find Poland so high up in the table, and that it was in the top two for a while. But Poland will not be here for long.<\/p>\n
All four of the country’s teams have been playing in the Conference League, while over a third of its points were picked up in the qualifying rounds.<\/p>\n
With Legia Warsaw eliminated and no bonus points on the way from the Europa League, Poland will drop further on Thursday.<\/p>\n
FRANCE<\/p>\n
It has been a disappointing season for Ligue 1 teams, starting with Nice’s failure to make it through Champions League qualifying.<\/p>\n
It has not got much better from there for Nice, as they are already eliminated from the Europa League. Lille could also yet drop out of the top 24.<\/p>\n
Monaco and Paris St-Germain will play in Champions League play-offs but France has become a rank outsider for an extra place.<\/p>\n
CYPRUS<\/p>\n
Another surprise name on the list, boosted by Pafos reaching the Champions League for the first time.<\/p>\n
But with only two teams still active, and both in the Conference League, Cyprus is not a contender.<\/p>\n
GREECE<\/p>\n
Greece still has four teams active but is a long way behind the top two slots.<\/p>\n
DENMARK<\/p>\n
Only FC Midtjylland remain, so Denmark can be discounted too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here’s what it means after the end of the first stage of the Champions League. ENGLAND England is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-396098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}