The Scottish Premiership champions faced THREE qualifying rounds to reach the Champions League. The runners-up and our fourth placed team had to play three rounds just to reach the CONFERENCE League. And the Scottish Cup Winner having FOUR rounds to reach the Europa League. And the fifth placed team not even entering Europe
That was the shocking state of affairs Scottish football was staring into at the end of next season. Starting this season in seventeenth place in the UEFA rankings was a seismic drop from the relatively lofty position of eleventh place we ended last season and the ninth position we held for two years – we hadn’t been higher since 1988.
Just two European game-weeks ago we remained seventeenth and had earned less coefficient points this season than every nation above us apart from Israel. The analysts and supercomputers predicted somewhere between sixteenth and nineteenth as Scotland’s most likely finishing position. It looked terribly bleak. But fast forward just a couple of brilliant weeks and our outlook has completely flipped. We’ve increased our season total by nearly 50 per cent in just two weeks – from 3.4 points to five points.
That has resulted in us jumping up four places from the depths of 17th to the much more palatable 13th – and sit 1.7 points (four wins + on draw) behind twelfth placed Austria.
Two weeks ago, three Scottish clubs kept a clean sheet in the same week in Europe for the first time ever in the group stage era as we managed two wins and a draw. Celtic regained their confidence with the 0-0 draw in Italy and they put their foot to the floor this week as they recorded their most impressive European victory since beating Barcelona 2-1 at Celtic Park in 2012.
The 3-1 home win against RB Leipzig meant it was the first time they’ve won two Champions League games in a season since that 2012/13 campaign, and the first time they’ve managed three home Champions League wins in a row since 2007/08 under Gordon Strachan. At the halfway stage they’re now just ONE WIN from almost certain progression to the knockout rounds, and they’ve already played both of their Pot 1 teams.
Their remaining fixtures are kind – it’s why Opta Stats ranked Celtic’s fixture list as the “least difficult” of all 36 teams. Of course, nothing can be taken for granted in the Champions League – their next opponents Club Brugge just beat Aston Villa – but this is an opportunity for Celtic to achieve what we may well look back on as their highest Champions League finish for many years.
Two weeks ago, Rangers did what was expected of them in defeating the former European champions from Bucharest, who are a far cry from their heyday, but the attacking nature of the 4-0 win – their biggest group stage victory for more than 20 years – gave the fans hope that they could perform better in Europe than their domestic form has suggested thus far.
This week’s 1-1 draw away to Olympiacos was a good, battling performance and puts Rangers also just one win away from the 10 points they too will likely require to reach the knockouts. Rangers’ remaining fixtures are less kind; unlike Celtic they haven’t played either of their Pot 1 teams – the two English heavyweights of the Europa League. Before that is a not so Nice trip to the team that sits fifth in Ligue 1, where Rangers will again be underdogs, and so if results follow the bookmakers odds, it could well be win or bust in their final game at home to Union St.-Gilloise.
The new format presents the biggest opportunities for the smaller teams around Europe competing in the Conference League. Hearts are of course one of these, and fixtures against similarly low ranked teams have given them a platform to excel. However, nothing should be taken away from their European performance levels which have been fantastic. Like Celtic – this could be the best season we see from our ‘third force’ for many a year. Despite being unable to record three consecutive wins in Europe for the first time in their history – going down 2-0 at home to Bundesliga outfit FC Heidenheim – their opening two victories mean they are likely just ONE POINT away from reaching the knockout rounds. This would be the furthest Hearts have progressed in Europe since 1989 when Bayern Munich narrowly defeated them in the Quarter Final of the UEFA Cup.
WHY DO WE NEED 12th?
For Celtic and Rangers, even if the national coefficient drops, they will always have the budgets to do well enough in qualifiers to end up in a league phase most of the time. But for our third biggest team, whoever that may be in any given season, overcoming qualifiers is just not something the ‘other’ Scottish teams have been able to do.
That’s why targeting a twelfth place finish in the rankings is crucial for Scottish football. That is the position needed to guarantee NEXT season’s Scottish Cup Winners league phase football. Austria currently occupies that position, 1.7 points (4 wins + 1 draw) ahead of us. They looked uncatchable at the start of the season, adding 2.4 bonus points from Champions League qualification alone, as RB Salzburg progressed through qualifiers to join Champions Sturm Graz. However disastrous form once they’ve reached there – they have just one win and seven defeats from their combined eight matches – means the twelfth place door they should have had nailed shut, has been left ajar as Scotland makes a march up the rankings.
Each position higher finished in the league phase brings about more revenue, a ‘less difficult’ knockout round opponent, but most importantly for the greater good of Scottish football – more bonus coefficient points. If we can get three teams through to the knockout rounds – as looks very likely – then the bonus points bump will cut the gap on Austria even further. If LASK, who currently occupy elimination spots in the Conference league, are eliminated alongside Austria’s two Champions League teams, then it would be our three teams in a hunt against just one Austrian team – Rapid Vienna in the Conference League. We may find ourselves with a genuine chance of overtaking them and completing a remarkable climb out of the abyss.