England’s hopes of pipping Germany in the race for an extra Champions League spot took a huge hit on Wednesday night, with Arsenal and Manchester City crashing out of the competition.
In the reformatted edition of next season’s competition, the two countries with the highest co-efficient will be given an extra group-stage place.
Each win is worth two coefficient points, a draw gets you one, and you get nothing for a defeat. There are also bonus points for getting to certain stages.
Heading into this week’s matches, English clubs sat ahead of their German counterparts – but only on countback with the two countries locked on the same coefficient points.
But those hopes of pipping Germany and earning a fifth qualification spot for next season’s Champions League are now almost over after Bayern Munich beat Arsenal and Real Madrid knocked out Manchester City. Dortmund also knocked out Atletico Madrid on Tuesday, meaning Germany have moved ahead of England on points.
England will now be relying on a miracle from West Ham and Liverpool on Thursday night, who have to turn around their ties against Bayer Leverkusen and Atalanta, to have any hope of catching Germany.
Aston Villa have a 2-1 first-leg lead against Lille in the Europa Conference League but, even if Unai Emery’s side win and then win both their semi-final games and the final, it would not be enough for England to overtake Germany without one of West Ham or Liverpool progressing to the semi-finals of the Europa League.
In fact, Germany could mathematically secure an extra Champions League spot on Thursday if West Ham, Liverpool and Aston Villa lose on Thursday.
Italy on brink of sealing extra Champions League spot
The change will see 36 teams competing in the competition in a ‘Swiss league’ style, allowing for an additional place to be allocated to the two countries whose clubs perform best across all UEFA competitions.
Liverpool’s shock 3-0 home defeat by Atalanta means Italy can mathematically secure an extra Champions League spot if Fiorentina win and Atalanta do not lose in their respective second legs next week.
England has three teams left in Europe with Liverpool and West Ham in the Europa League and Aston Villa in the Europa Conference League.
Germany also have three teams remaining – Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League along with Champions League semi-finalists Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.
There are four Italian teams left standing with Atalanta (EL), AC Milan (EL), Roma (EL) and Fiorentina (ECL).
From 32 to 36 – who gets the additional places?
- One place will go to the club ranked third in the championship of the association in fifth position in the UEFA national association ranking
- One place will be awarded to a domestic champion by extending from four to five the number of clubs qualifying via the so-called ‘Champions Path’
- The final two places will go to the associations with the best collective performance by their clubs in the previous season (total number of points obtained divided by the number of participating clubs)
Regarding the final bullet point, those two associations will earn one place for the club best ranked in the domestic league behind the Champions League positions.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
How does this affect the other UEFA competitions?
Qualification for the two other UEFA competitions, the Europa League and Europa Conference League, will follow the same protocols as in previous years, albeit if the fifth spot qualifies for the Champions League, the Europa League spot will go to the team finishing sixth.
Similar format changes will also be applied to the Europa League (eight matches in the league stage) and Europa Conference League (six matches in the league stage) and both will also include 36 teams in the league phase.
If England receive five CL places, does the ECL spot go down to eighth?
Yes, it does – provided the domestic cups are won by those finishing inside the top seven as seen last season, with Manchester United winning the Carabao Cup and Manchester City winning the FA Cup.
Based on last season, eighth-placed Tottenham would have qualified for the Europa Conference League and Aston Villa would have been promoted to the Europa League.
How could this impact the 2024/25 domestic leagues schedules?
Given the Champions League will almost double in size – from a total of 125 games to 225 – at least four additional matchdays will be required to fit in the extra games. This will inevitably cause issues for domestic leagues, with fewer dates to fit in all their games.
How does the new Champions League format work?
Taking the total number of teams from 32 to 36 in the Champions League, the biggest change will see a transformation from the traditional group stage to a single league phase including all participating teams.
Every club will now be guaranteed a minimum of eight league-stage games against eight different opponents (four home games, four away) rather than the previous six matches against three teams, played on a home-and-away basis.
The top eight sides in the league will qualify automatically for the knockout stage, while the teams finishing in ninth to 24th place will compete in a two-legged play-off to secure their path to the last 16 of the competition.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Has the Premier League had five CL participants before?
Previously in 2005, when Liverpool won the Champions League but finished outside the top four, the Premier League was granted five potential Champions League berths, with the caveat of having to go through qualifiers.
During the 2015/16 season, Spain became the first association to have five teams in the Champions League group stage after Sevilla lifted the Europa League, despite finishing outside the top four in LaLiga the previous campaign, while Valencia came through the play-off round.
Remarkably, there is even a chance – albeit an extremely unlikely one – of there being as many as seven Premier League clubs in the Champions League next season based on the change in rules.
That would require both the Champions League and Europa League winners to be from the Premier League and both teams finishing outside the top five in the top flight.
Get Sky Sports on WhatsApp!
You can now start receiving messages and alerts for the latest breaking sports news, analysis, in-depth features and videos from our dedicated WhatsApp channel!
Find out more here…
