I find an inherent beauty in simplicity and truly believe that the best solutions to most of the world’s problems are naturally simplistic. However, I must confess a sinfully lustful attraction to the occasional bit of complication on the side. And if it’s complication that you’re after, you need look no further than a European football tournament administered by UEFA.

Have you ever stopped to ponder why England, Spain and Italy all get to send 4 teams each to the Champions League? Ever noticed that they also send 3 teams to the second tier European competition; Europa League? How about Germany, France and Russia – why do they only get 3 spots in the Champions League, but the German’s and French 3rd placed teams enter in the 4th qualifying round, while Russia’s enter in the 3rd qualifying round?

Despite appearances, it’s not just plucked out of thin air in the pub by Platini and his cohorts over a few Chardonnays. It’s actually defined each year in a document known as the Access List and there’s a fair bit of maths behind it.

Maths

In simple terms, each team playing in Europe are allocated points based on their performance through the competition. This score is totaled over the previous 5 year period and is known as their coefficient.

Of course, teams don’t always qualify for Europe so their Coefficient score is actually made up of two parts – their own score over the 5 years and the coefficient of the league they belong to over the same period. The League’s coefficient is based upon the collective performance of the teams representing it.

For instance, last year both Aston Villa and Portsmouth had not qualified for Europe during the previous 5 seasons, so had no coefficient scores of their own. They therefore picked up only England’s coefficient score of 24.996. Man City had played in the UEFA Cup in 03/04 and the score from that season was the difference that rated them at 30.996.

Seeding

So, what practical use do these numbers have? Well, they’re most commonly used to seed teams at various stages of the competition. For example, when the draw was made for last year’s UEFA Cup (8 groups of 5 teams each) the 40 teams were first divided into 5 pots of 8 and the groups were then made up by drawing a team from each pot.

The 8 strongest teams were placed in the first pot, the next 8 teams in the second pot and so on. Villa and Portsmouth were placed in pot 4, so were actually 4th seed teams. Man City’s higher score meant they actually made it into pot 3. Believe it or not, Spurs were in pot 1, so could not be drawn in the same group as any of the big guns such as AC Milan.

This is why I always want to see the English clubs win in Europe, regardless of who it is… even Liverpool. Well, maybe not Liveprool, but all the others. We’re reliant on their performance for part of our own coefficient score, especially the years that we don’t qualify for Europe.

We’re also reliant on the collective performance of the teams to define how many teams get to qualify for Europe and when they enter the competitions as defined in the Access List. During the last couple of years, German clubs have out performed Italian clubs and Germany is projected to take Italy’s place as the third ranked European league if this continues over the next couple of seasons. That will mean Germany gaining a slot in the Champions League and Italy losing one.

2009/10 Europa League

This year’s Access List allocated England 7 European spots. 4 Champions League, with the first 3 entering at the group stage and the fourth entering at the final qualifying stage. Plus 3 Europa League places, the lowest qualified team entering in the 3rd round of qualifying and the other two teams entering at the 4th and final qualifying round.

By the time Villa and Everton entered the competition in the 4th qualifying round, the tournament already included some teams who had been knocked out of the Champions League, plus the teams surviving from the 3rd round, making a total of 76 teams.

These 76 teams were sorted by their coefficient scores, highest to lowest, and the first 38 became the seeded teams. Each seeded team was then drawn to play a team from the lower 38 – the unseeded sides.

The 38 winners would then be joined by the 10 losing teams from the Champions League 4th qualifying round, Celtic among them, to go into the group stage draw.

Once we knew the 10 losers from Champions League this week it was easy to predict the 48 teams to go into the draw based on the assumption that the 38 seeded teams would defeat the 38 unseeded in the 4th round of qualifying. The 48 teams predicted to make the draw were easily divided into the 4 pots they would be drawn from in exactly the same way as the teams were drawn from 5 pots last year. Villa would have been in pot 3.

All but 3 of the 38 seeded teams beat their unseeded opponent, Aston Villa sadly among them. If 3 seeded teams didn’t make the draw, that must mean that 3 lower ranked sides – possibly much lower ranked – join at the bottom and teams above them benefit.

Where there are losers, there are also winners.

The Winners and Losers

The biggest surprise of the night must surely be 2008 UEFA Cup Champions Zenit St Petersburg failure to get past Portugal’s Nacional Funchal. To put it in perspective, Zenit were ranked 6th out of the 76 teams with a coefficient of 68.525, while Nacional were 59th with 7.292.

Ranked 6th, Zenit would have been in pot 1 for the draw along with the likes of Werder Bremen, Villareal and Roma. If they’re not there, it means everyone moves up a spot and the team that would have been top ranked in pot 2 will instead be drawn from pot 1.

Steaua Bucharest will gladly take that place I’m sure and avoid the other top seeded teams in the draw. And if the Romanian team have been promoted, that means there’s a place in pot 2 for a team from pot 3.

Perhaps a little surprising, although I mentioned Italian teams under-performing earlier, it’s actually Lazio that get bumped from pot 3 to pot 2. They won’t mind.

Aston Villa would have been in pot 3, as would the other seeded team failing to beat unseeded opposition – Metalist Kharkiv. As the 3 unseeded teams – Radid Vienna, Nacional Funchal and Sturm Graz – are all ranked so lowly that they’ll be going into pot 4, it means that 3 teams get promoted to pot 3.

Those 3 teams are McClaren’s Twente, Dynamo Zagreb and England’s Fulham.

The biggest winner overall would probably be Austria who have all 4 teams who qualified for Europe making it to the group stage of the Europa League. Not bad, I guess I’m guilty of underestimating our opponents.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s in our own interests to see English sides progress in Europe, but now Fulham are directly benefiting from our failure and I maybe you’ll join me in hoping they progress as far as possible. Especially if it distracts them in the Premiership as I feel they could be quite a force this season.

Oh, who’s that coming to Villa Park next Sunday…. Fulham!!