England has a 1.1 per cent chance of having five teams in next season’s Champions League after a disastrous week for Premier League clubs in Europe.
Aston Villa, who beat Lille on penalties to reach the Europa Conference League semi-finals, are the sole remaining English club in Europe after Arsenal, Manchester City, West Ham and Liverpool all went out this week.
This has left England third in the coefficient table with 17.375 points behind Germany (17.928 points) and Italy (19.428 points) – with the top two nations given an extra spot.
A win is worth two points, a draw one and there are also bonus points for reaching certain stages of competitions.
Even if Villa were to beat Olympiakos in both legs of their semi-finals and then defeat Fiorentina or Club Brugge in the final, England would still need the remaining German teams (Bayern Munich, Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen) to lose all their remaining games to overtake Germany.
Two more victories or two draws and a win for German teams will be enough to secure second in the table. Bayern face Real Madrid and Dortmund take on PSG in the Champions League semi-finals and Leverkusen face Roma in the Europa League semi-finals.
Italy have secured an extra Champions League spot and could end up with six teams competing at European football’s top table next season. That would occur if Atalanta, who are sixth in Serie A, remain outside of the top five and win the Europa League.
England has finished in the top two of the coefficient table in six of the last seven seasons but the Premier League currently has their lowest coefficient total since the 2016/17 – and it would have been an even lower but for the introduction of the Europa Conference League in 2021-22.
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.
Lee Hendrie was left bemused as Emi Martinez was shown a second yellow card during Aston Villa’s penalty shootout with Lille but was not sent off. The Argentine then secured Villa’s progression by saving the hosts’ final penalty
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.
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