UEFA Country Rankings: Current Rankings 22 August 2013

For the members of UEFA, the world's top football organzation the country rankings are very important. Based of your ranking over a five year period a league can get up to seven clubs into UEFA competitions. A country also can earn an extra berth based on fair play ranking.

There are 53 nations that are apart of this system. The key is to get as many clubs from your league into the Champions League the top tourney in UEFA. Clubs also want a good presence in the Europa League the next best tourney. A club can earn for its league points on how well the do in these competitions. Two points aearded for win one point for draw. These points are halved in qualifying rounds. The total number of points will then be divided by the number of clubs that played that season from the league. That gives you their ranking for that year. It is added to the previous four years to get a total ranking. This ranking will be used for future UEFA tourneys. For example the 2012-13 final coefficent rankings will be used for 2014-15 season. At the end of this current season those rankings will be used in 2015-16.

For the current UEFA tourney season, rankings were used from the end of the 2011-12 season. So from 2007 to 2012 determined how many clubs from a certain league would particapte for a certain tourney.

England lead all other Countires after the 2011-12 season and have seven clubs playing in UEFA competitions. They were followed by Spain and Germany who also have seven clubs playing. Italy is number four followed by Portugual, France, Russia, Netherlands and Ukraine. All of those clubs have six clubs playing.

Greece was 10th in this ranking followed by Turkey, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland and Austria who get five clubs in. Cyprus was 16th and got four slots. They were followed by Israel, Scotland, Czech Republic and Poland in the top 20. Those clubs also got four slots. So the clubs playing this year will effect their league standing from 2015 to 2020. So every league wants to do very well in these tourneys.

The key thing to remember is a club can lose spots because once new season starts the lose that fifth year points. For example Ukraine has dropped two places because the lost 16.625 points while Russia lost only 9.750 and Netherlands only 6.333. Being a league that always does well will always help. Having good and bad years can hurt you one time but help the next. Leagues also get bonus points. Every Club that makes it to the group stage of the champions league earns four bonus points. If they make Round of 16 they get 5 more bonus points. Every club that makes Qtrfinals of Champions and Europa leagues earn one bonus point. Same for Semi Finals and Finals.

So far this year Romania has earned 3.875 points that leads all leagues thru the first ties of the playoff round of both tourneys. The Czech Republic is second with 2.875 points earned so far this tourney season. Russia has earned 2.583 points so far. They have got five wins from Rubin Kazan and three each from Zenit St. Petersburg and Kuban Krasnodar. Spartak Moscow has drawn in their only match this season.

As for the top three countries Spain has gotten five wins so far out of five matches. Sevilla has three of those while Real Betis and Real Sociedad each have one. England has four wins out of five matches. Swansea City has two wins and a draw while Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur each have one. Germany has struggled so far as Eintracht Frankfurt has the only win so far for the country. VfB Stuttgart drew their first two matches and luckily advance because of away goals but they would lose their first match in next round. Schalke 04 has played only one match which they earned a draw.

It is hard to say who the biggest loser is so far as many of the middle of the road countries have lost one or more clubs so far. Belarus has only one club left which means they have a good chance of dropping out of the top 20. Denmark, Cyprus, Israel, Greece, Ukraine and Netherlands each have lost two clubs so far this season. Only eight countries have all their remaining clubs still left in both tourneys.