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Author: Enrique
Date: 21-12-2007, 08:16

Maybe it's a bit early to talk about it. But most of the critical spots are decided in this year's competition (except 6th rank). So, for most countries (and me) it's mostly about improving starting positions for next year's race.

Spain(6 teams left), England(7) and Italy(4) are just accumulating points. Nobody will challenge them next year.

Germany(6) and France(3) are as well just accumulating points to increase gap to lower ranked countries to avoid a fight for 5th spot (one less QR than 6th ranked country).

Russia(2) is still trying to get 6th rank this year but is definitely a strong contender for next year's race, as Romania is out this year and Russia is only 2.5p behind in next year's starting table. Romania will be starting with 6 teams next year which will be interesting to follow. Russia sends only 4 teams, which could be a decisive advantage.

Portugal(4) It's more interesting to follow Portugals battle for 6th place this year than next year's. They're loosing too many points next year and will struggle to go for rank 6 next season. But they still have a lot of teams in this years competition. So there is a bit of hope.

Netherlands(1) They have nothing to fear, but also not likely to go for much more next season, unless they have a spectacular next season. Otherwise they might be facing some trouble for 2010.

Turkey(2) and Scotland(3) are collecting points for next year's fight for 12th place against Switzerland(2), Greece(3) and Ukraine who is already out, but is leading this group of five. This is really an interesting race.

Czech Republic(1) and Belgium(1) will be fighting for next year's 15th rank. Belgium is in best position and will start on 15th rank, whereas Czech Republic should try to score a few more point to catch up with Bulgaria.

Norway(2) is now scoring to secure rank 18 by increasing gap to Denmark and Austria who are already out.

Sweden(1) is going for rank 21, but still has Serbia and Israel in front of them. But one more point this year and they start ahead of Serbia.

The above is based on races for the critical ranks, i.e. every 3rd rank (plus rank 5) and doesn't consider shiftings due to TH spot.

Re: 2009 Country Ranking
Author: Zhund0r Date: 21-12-2007, 08:33	I think Germany will make more points than France this season. Not only because of the number of teams, but also because of the quality in the Uefa Cup (Bayern, Leverkusen, Hamburg & Werder). They could possibly all reach semifinals.

Author: Cirdan
Date: 21-12-2007, 10:40
Edited by: Cirdan
at: 21-12-2007, 10:41

How many points Germany makes doesn't really matter for the 2009 ranking, because like Enrique said, Italy is too far away, and the 6th and further down won't catch them, and 4th or 5th doesn't make a difference. If the rest of this year goes very well for Germany, and not so well for Italy, we might finally get an interesting race for 3rd in 2010 or 2011 again, but there are still a lot of games to play until that happens.

Other than Enrique, I'd definitely include Netherlands in the race for 6th. They've repeatedly shown that they can do 8-10 points with 6 teams, which might be enough if Russia and Romania don't perform much better than this year. Of course both didn't have a great season, especially Romania, but I still think it's possible that Holland can make 3 points more than Russia and 5 points more than Romania. Something like 10 pts/7 pts/5 pts doesn't look too unreasonable. And of course, PSV still can make that closer in the rest of this season.

Re: 2009 Country Ranking
Author: Malko Date: 21-12-2007, 22:52	It's really astonishing that germany takes over France for some months probably next season. But it is true that france this year had the wrong tems in UEFA-Cup. I think tthe 4th place for Germany will last a few months only and then france will come ahead again. We will see next year, but the quality ofboth leagues (if you see entire matches) is clearly in favorite of French Ligue1.

Author: VfB1981
Date: 21-12-2007, 23:46

Well, I admit that I don't watch whole games from the French league. But I really doubt that Bordeaux or Marseille are better than Leverkusen, Bremen or Hamburg. Which teams should have been in the UEFA cup from France? The only constant is Lyon.

From a coefficient point of view, Germany is already 1 point ahead and has 6/7 teams while France has only 3/7 teams. So at the end of the year Germany will be probably 3-4 point ahead. So it will be very hard for France if not impossible to overtake again next year.

Author: Malko
Date: 22-12-2007, 00:10

Well VFB, Bordeaux and Marseille a maybe not better than Bremen and Cie, but are probably on the same level actually...and as we know, marseille is not on its best level.
French season is to compare with the German-one 5 years ago, when they only make 4 points. Such things happen.....
PSG and Monaco will be strong again and increase the coefficient of france in the coming years again.
And nancy has thrown Schalke out of UEFA-Cup last year. This was not such a big surprise for me as it was told in germany. the problem in germany is that they do not look as much as they should to other countries, especially to france....even if they have Eurosport (Eurogoals) and premiere with the Top-Games. The two leagues are on a fairy equal level, but i think France is still a little above, especially the midfield and the bottom of the league, but this has no impact on UEFA-Coeficient. And with lyon, France has one team, germany doesn't have actually, even not Bayern Munich.

Author: Cirdan
Date: 22-12-2007, 05:40
Edited by: Cirdan
at: 22-12-2007, 06:04

You can't judge a league on Eurogoals... I can only judge by the European Cup games I watched. Nancy last year looked quite good, better than expected, but not that great, usually Schalke should be able to beat them. Lyon was pretty amazing, but in the first match in Stuttgart, VFB was not in shape and without some key players, in Lyon, that was quite an interesting match, open most of the time... I don't think Lyon was better than Bayern in the beginning of this season, Bremen with everyone fit & in shape might keep up with them, too. And finally Rennes was utterly disappointing, especially after seeing Nancy the year before, I don't think they are better than German mid-table teams.

Btw, PSG and Monaco? It doesn't really look like we'll see them next year, Marseille might not qualify either.

Generally, I see France and Germany as fairly equal, too. I'm not sure if the French mid- and bottom-table teams are really better than the Germans, but it's almost impossible to judge, especially since I don't see that much of the French league... comparing the top teams (Bayern-Bremen-Schalke-Hamburg-Leverkusen vs Lyon-Bordeaux-Marseille-Nancy) I tend to see an advantage for the Germans, which might of course be local pride and hardly seeing French football. But judging by the results of the last years, and by what I've seen, I doubt that France will catch a 2-4 point lead within just a couple of months, that would need either an exceptionally bad German season or an exceptionally great French season, or both.

Author: Enrique
Date: 22-12-2007, 12:00

Looking at the last five years of France you'll notice a constant negative trend. Year by year they're collecting less points. This year will most likely not be an exception.

I don't expect France to pass Germany for at least another year. I honestly believe after years of struggle Germany will finally start to perform again in Europe. I'm certain Germany will start next year on 4th place and hold it. Whether it's enough to re-gain rank 3 in two or three years...I don't know.

Italy has at least 3 to 4 teams every season who are capable of winning the CL (including Juve). But behind the top 4, i.e. on Uefa Cup level, Italian teams are not better than German teams. Here's the chance for Germany to recover points.

@Cirdan
I kind of see your point with the Dutch teams. 6 teams from the Netherlands should be able to score better than 6 teams from Romania or Russia. Dutch league has imo more depth. But Russia will most likely start with 4 teams next year and that in my opinion will be a huge advantage. Plus Russia has still two teams in this year's UC. If each Russian team wins just one game, PSV will have to win another 3 games to not loose more points to Russia. Not an impossible task, but tough.

Author: Malko
Date: 22-12-2007, 12:06

Cirdan, of course, much will depend on how France and germany will end this actual season. and yes, Rennes, Sochaux, lens and even Toulouse were very disappointing this year, but Germany had such a season a couple of years ago. Concerning Lyon and Stuttgart, maybe the difference was not that astonishing, but Lyon began this international season very weakly, remember the home-game vs Rangers.....bye the way, lyon beats regularly the German champions, incusive Bayern some years ago. It was Bremen 2 years ago with a 10-3 aggregate !
Concerning seeing french league, it is possible in germany by premiere 8even if they do not give as matches as they should), or watching the League-Cup, which is fta on AB3-Satellite (France2 and France3).There are very godd matches, and very ennoying matches, but it is the same in bundesliga (i see it on canalPlus). It is true, that Eurogoals only shows the good parts of a game, but it is the same in german Sportschau. i remember when I was a boy (in the seventies), i watched Sportschau every saturday. It was great football....but the 8 best minutes of 7 different games. the first time, i was in a Bundesliga-Stadium (i think it was Stuttgart-Cologne with hansi Mueller), i was quite disappointed. it wans't better than i watched every week in Metz at that time.
Back to coefficients.
I suppose it will stay like this:

group 1 : Italy-England-Spain (in disorder)

group 2: France and germany (no special order either)

group3 : countries like Holland, Russia, portugal, Romania (?)

Author: VfB1981
Date: 22-12-2007, 13:11

Malko you are right that Lyon can beat every German team also Bayern. Bremen is a special case, because they either win with many goals or lose with many goals. I also think that the French league is for sure as good as the Bundeliga. The French league is concerning technical abilities still better which makes the games more joyful to watch in most cases.

However, the big disadvantage of the French league is that their top teams are very unstable. If you have a look at the top 6 teams in the team ranking you find them at positions:
7, 25, 25, 31, 32, 36
But from these teams only Lyon and Bordeaux would be qualified for the european competitions at the moment.

Compared to this the top 6 teams from Germany have the places:
15, 20, 22, 38, 43, 47
Thus, the French teams have a little bit better positions at the moment. But 5 of the top 6 Bundesliga teams will almost for sure qualify for next year and also Stuttgart has still good chances ( I hope

).

Summarizing: Both leagues have a similar strength, but the stability of the top teams gives the Bundeliga a big advantage.

Author: Malko
Date: 22-12-2007, 13:57

It is true that in France, teams who are European have often difficulties to qualifiy regularly for Europe. As you say for the teams which are/were engaged this year. But i think that one reason for this is that the french League has less weak teams than others, so that not always the same qualify easily for European Cups. The strenght is nos as good as to say: No matter who it is, it will be stronger than the opponent;
but the strenght is like in the Bundesliga. Or in France, i think there are more teams who have this strenght than in germany, so every year, different ones will qualify...which is not good for the coefficient.

Re: 2009 Country Ranking
Author: amirbachar Date: 22-12-2007, 16:28 Edited by: amirbachar at: 22-12-2007, 16:28	That's actually something the new system will take care of: because the UC group stage will have 48 teams, any team from France and Germany will probably be seeded in the last qualifing round. And it the group stage itself, it doesn't have such a big impact as in a KO round.