Missed opportunity for Romanian football
By: Ian Rose | November 9th, 2007As Bob so fittingly put it this week:
Every year there is at least one team in the Champions League that makes you wonder how in the world they even qualified for the thing. This year it is Steau Bucharest. The Romanian club has been simply awful.
It’s true. In the last two seasons, the three Bucharest clubs led Romania to one of the best league coefficients in Europe. In 2005-06, there was an all-Romanian quarterfinal in the UEFA Cup. But this year looks like a total bust for Romania in Europe, with only one team remaining, the timid-looking Steau Bucharest, who have lost four out of four in their Champions League group and still have a trip to the Emirates looming. But the really sad part about the collapse this season is that, because of the weirdness that is the UEFA coefficient system, a decent showing this season could have actually had a meaningful result for Romania.
At the end of last season, thanks to those two insanely good years, Romania was the seventh-ranked league in Europe. This ranking is based on continental results from the past five seasons, and it is this coefficient system that determines which leagues get which number of Champions League and UEFA Cup qualifying positions. There are a few important boundaries in the rankings, like the one that separates third-place Italy (who get four Champions League spots) from fourth-place France (who get only three). The next important boundary is between sixth and seventh place, with sixth place getting three Champions League spots and seventh getting two.
Current sixth-place league Portugal has been on a slide in the coefficients for the past few seasons, with an especially disappointing season in 2005-06. With an average result this season, Romania had a real chance to overcome Portugal and move into the sixth position, which would have gained them a third Champions League entry in 2009-10. Instead, they will be lucky to hold onto seventh. With three fairly successful teams still in the UEFA Cup, Russia looks poised to overtake Romania and might even jump into that coveted sixth place themselves. As it stands, they are ahead of Portugal if the competitions ended today, and all four Russian teams are still in competition (even though things look bleak in the Champions League for CSKA Moscow).
You can be sure that the billionaires behind the big Russian teams have their eye on that third Champions League spot, considering its potential cash value. Romania had a brilliant chance to take it for themselves, but instead look set to drop back down into the lower levels of the UEFA hierarchy.
Category: Europe
Tags: Subscribe
|
Print
|
Share
      |
Comments
-
I was wondering about that myself. Romania last year looked like an unstoppable force, like a team that had earned its place at the table of big leagues (at least for its collection of Bucharesti teams).
Do you have any idea why they collapsed? I know Steau Bucharesti’s fall can be at least partially attributed to their insane owner and his firing of the charismatic coach, but is that the whole story?
Posted from
United States
-
Romania has been a victim of its own success in a way. Instead of three teams (usually three Bucarest based teams), they had five clubs in Europe this season. The problem is, that Romania’s league seems to be lacking depth outside of Bucarest, so the two teams that got the extra spots were eliminated very early on. Since the total points are now divided through 5 instead of 3, Romania would have always struggled to repeat the great performances of previous years.
If the Bucarest based clubs then have an off-season it results in the disaster that this year really has been. Because Romania won’t be collecting much more than 2,4 points for the ranking this season. A big chance for other leagues to reclaim lost ground.
Posted from
Germany -
Yeah, Jan, that’s true. Gaining more European spots definitely has a cost that way. As much as a lot of people complain about the UEFA coefficient system as being overly complicated and abstract, I think it’s a good system, and this is one of the things I like most about it. When you jump over one of the boundaries and gain a spot, you then have to earn the right to stay at that level. 2.4 is a horrible season coefficient. To put it in context, that would have put Romania in 22nd last season, just above Latvia and just below Poland.
Posted from
United States -
Cerberus: I wish I knew a bit more about the reasons behind the Bucharesti falling apart this season. It happens just as a statistical oddity every once in a while, but this is an especially bad one. Germany had a pretty terrible year, for example, in 2003-04, when they scored less than half what they usually do in Europe. But I don’t follow Romanian football well enough to know if this was just a fluke or if there was any specific reason behind it.
Posted from
United States
Comments are closed
Home 
Euro 2008
