The North London Derby clash between Tottenham and Arsenal could have a huge impact on whether or not Champions League football returns to N17 next season. Currently fifth in the Premier League table with six games remaining, Spurs trail their main rivals Aston Villa by six points as the league fixtures begin to dry up.
The Lilywhites essentially have two games in hand going into the final day, and that could potentially prove decisive. With the Premier League securing an extra Champions League place for the 2024/25 campaign due to the expansion of Europe’s premier competition, England’s hopes are now hanging by a thread after a series nightmarish results in Europe a week ago.
Seeing Arsenal and Man City exit the Champions League in the quarter-finals, Liverpool and West Ham were also eliminated in the Europa League. With England and Germany competing for one of two additional Champions League spots via the European Performance Spots, Arsenal’s defeat to Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen eliminating West Ham has only strengthened Germany’s chances of seeing a fifth Bundesliga team participate in the Champions League next season. .
While Italy has already secured an additional place in the European rankings, Germany only needs 0.488 coefficient points to triumph over England. As things stand in the semi-finals of the three UEFA club competitions, England have Aston Villa in the Europa Conference League, while Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund represent Germany in the Champions League and the Bayern Leverkusen does the same in the Europa League.
It looks very bleak in terms of the Premier League securing a fifth place in the Champions League next campaign, but it’s still possible. So what would have to happen for England to get the better of Germany in the fight to join Italy in the top two of the European rankings?
European performance scores are calculated by UEFA by adding coefficient points based on club performances in the three UEFA club competitions. A victory is worth two points, a draw is worth one point and no points are awarded for a defeat.
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Teams also receive additional bonus points based on their progress in a competition. Although the points differ slightly in the group stage of the three competitions, reaching the semi-final of any of the three is only worth one point.
Once all the points have been added up, they are then divided by the number of clubs that started the season in UEFA competitions to calculate the average coefficient. As England started with eight teams in Europe compared to Germany’s seven, each victory is worth slightly less in coefficient terms.
Italy’s current coefficient is 19.428, Germany’s is 17.928 and England are in the top three with their score of 17.375.
Aston Villa are expected to lift the Europa Conference League trophy in Athens at the end of the month and win all three matches to help the Premier League move closer to the Bundesliga. This could be a possibility if Unai Emery’s side face Olympiacos over two legs in the semi-final and then face Fiorentina or Club Brugge in the final, assuming they make it there.
Even if Villa won all three of their games, the Premier League would depend on German teams suffering a horrible run of semi-final results just to give them an outside chance. However, Germany could very easily secure an additional Champions League place at the semi-final stage over the coming weeks.
Two wins would be enough to see them win and the same goes for one win and two draws. In the Champions League, Bayern Munich faces Real Madrid over two matches and Borussia Dortmund faces PSG.
Bayer Leverkusen also faces a tricky semi-final against Roma. Xabi Alonso’s side are favorites to lift the Europa League trophy in Dublin after an extraordinary season which saw them win the Bundesliga and not lose even a single game in three competitions.
It doesn’t really look promising at the moment that the Premier League will secure an extra Champions League place for the next campaign, but an awful lot can change in football. For Tottenham, the only way Ange Postecoglou’s side can guarantee their return to Europe’s premier competition from September is if Villa are pipped to fourth in the final Premier League table.
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