The essence
A direct ticket to the Champions League group stage requires a place in the top 10 of the UEFA ranking. Only last season, our country dropped to 13th place, four places lower than a year earlier, and so many European tickets lose their value.
Because our dramatic European season of 2017-2018 (with barely 2,600 points) ended, Belgium started the current season in virtual 10th place. In the battle for the top 10, Scotland, Austria, Serbia and Norway will become the main competitors for our country.
Feel free to get out the streamers and cake: a modest coefficient party can be celebrated. Because Belgium jumped over Scotland to place 8 in the UEFA ranking this week.
Hip Hip Hooray!
That performance was mainly due to Union this week. The team from Brussels gathered 1,400 points with their win against Malmö – of which 1,000 bonus for the group win.
This means that the share of the vice champion in the European contribution is almost as large as that of Club Brugge. Blauw-Zwart was unable to contribute for once this match day due to the defeat against Porto.
KAA Gent and Anderlecht did that to a limited extent (0.200 points each) with their draws in the Conference League. Next week it’s up to them to give a big push.
But hey, Belgium has been running out of pursuers again in recent days. In addition, our competitors will almost certainly see a lot of sales representatives die.
There is a very good chance that Scotland will be left with no one after the New Year. Due to Celtic’s draw against Shakhtar, they are knocked out in Europe. Rangers (3-0 loss against Napoli) can only go to the Europa League by a miracle. And Hearts is also ready despite a win against RFS.
The outlook for Austria is slightly better. RB Salzburg lost against Chelsea, but can still winter next week. Sturm Graz won well against Feyenoord (1-0), but the crazy group F in the Europa League can still go either way. Austria Vienna is counted out after the 1-1 against Lech Poznan.
Source: Sporza
