Russian league takes #6 spot
By: Ian Rose | February 21st, 2008As predicted last week, the Russian Premier League has taken its place as the sixth-ranked league in Europe. Their current UEFA coefficient of 40.75, added to by Spartak Moscow’s 2-0 win over Marseille today, puts them just over Romania and into the coveted 6th position, with its 3 Champions League spots. This is the spot that used to belong to Portugal, before a few years of bad results put them down to their current ranking of 8th.
In customary Yakov Smirnoff / everything-in-Russia-is-backwards style, Spartak won today, but lost their two-legged UEFA Cup tie on aggregate 3-2, and so are out of the competition. Meanwhile, Zenit St. Petersburg lost 2-1, but won on away goals after their 1-0 victory at home in the first leg. Yeesh.
Anyway, welcome to the big leagues, Russia. Now, the question is, can you hold onto that spot, as Romania was unable to do after their surge to sixth? As I said in the previous article, I think the resources are there, but you need the results. As Hearts fans are well aware, a billionaire owner doesn’t necessarily mean footballing success.
Category: Europe
Tags: Europe, Russian Premier League, Spartak Moscow, UEFA coefficients, UEFA rankings, Yakov Shmirnoff, Zenit St. PetersburgSubscribe
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Comments
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In theory Portugal could still reclaim 6th place. Russia has only one team left in the competition, while Portugal could still earn points with three (assuming Braga doesn’t score four goals in the next few minutes) teams. The gap isn’t that big…
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United States
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Portugal needs to make up about 1.5 coefficient points on Russia, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s with seven total teams in competition, meaning they need 10.5 more points, or about five wins and a draw. In Europe, it’s 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw. I just don’t see them doing it, but it is technically possible.
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I agree with Jan. The math should only be made at the end of the european season for both portuguese and russian teams. Porto can still defeat Shcalke (although I sincerely hope they dont) and both Benfica and Sporting have just stepped to the next UEFA cup round.
Furthermore I think the article is based in a wrong premise. The number of teams elegible to play in UEFA competitions is based upon european results throughout several years, instead of a single season. Russian teams most surpass the portuguese on a consistent basis if they want to surpass then in the UEFA ranks (The ridiculous sums they spend every year could make this possible).Cheers
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OK, but you get bonus points as well. Let’s take Porto. They’ll need to beat Schalke to get to the next round (2pts) and will receive another bonus point for the quarter final (3pts). Reaching the quarter final of the UEFA Cup gives you 1 bonus point as well, so let’s assume Sporting and Benfica draw and win a match in the next round, then they’ll each bag another four points (=sum total 11pts). And in that case all teams would still have the chance to earn even more points in the following rounds. It could happen…
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I hate to hijack a little, but Jan when the disastrous 03/04 goes off the books next year, how far can the Bundesliga move up? 4th will be automatic but is it possible for 3rd?
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I’m not saying it’s impossible, not by any means, and I’ll concede that I may be jumping the gun a little. But the fact is they’re in that position now, and when you only have to divide your points by four teams instead of by 7, you’re hard to move loose. Still, point taken about it still being early.
Nuno - these calculations are based on the four-year average that UEFA uses, not this season. PS - Your Benfica boys did an unbelievable job coming back at the last minute against Nurnberg. Crazy result.
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Johnny - no worries about hijacking. The Bundesliga will definitely start next European season in the drivers seat to be fourth, as you said. But they’ll start 9 points behind Italy, which should be too much to make up in a single season, so fourth will probably be about as high as they can get next year.
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Johnny:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/crank2009.htmlThis site is heaven for statistic nerds. Have a look around and you can find every possible ranking.
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Johnny, as Ian stated the gap would be around 9pts at the moment. You can’t close that in a ‘normal’ season. If you are mean spirited towards Serie A you could hope that Arsenal does the unlikely and kicks Milan out, that the same happens to Roma and Inter and that Everton claim the UEFA Cup favourites title by knocking out Fiorentina. Then hope that the remaining Bundesliga sides collect as many points as possible (5 are already guaranteed via the Leverkusen - Hamburg clash). In that case the Bundesliga could probably go into the next season, with a points deficit that could be overcome.
But for me it’s more important that the Bundesliga sides simply start playing more consistently in Europe in the future and that this season isn’t just a freak result. No more first round UEFA Cup bullshit of Schalke and Berlin last season. That would be enough to close in on the top three in the long run.
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Okay I think I get it. Thanks Ian and Jan.
But if it comes down to getting close to 3rd and my Spurs winning the UEFA, the Bundesliga will have to suffer
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United States
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