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Teamranking, not 50 %, but 25 % of the country ranking ?
Author: kurt Date: 23-07-2001, 19:21	The calculation of the teamranking should be changed : Now,1000 point ( draw ), 2000 pts (win ), and the 50 % of the countryranking should become 25%. If this continues ( and it will be ), Spania gets a countrycoefficient of 86.000 This means they have an advantage of 42.000 .This is way too much.If they change it to 25 %. It would be 21.OOO Still a lot but acceptable. Do You Agree ?

Author: WiSK
Date: 24-07-2001, 12:12

I'm not sure you should want to reduce the country ranking just because you feel a certain value is "too much". I agree that 50% is a rather arbitrary value, but so is the rest of the equation and yet it seems to provide a workable system.

Teams from the Spanish league perform consistantly well in Europe in the last couple of years. This is reflected in the coefficients, and the seeding of Spanish teams is, on that basis, well deserved. If you look at the evidence of last season, there were seven of the nine Spanish teams reached the quarter finals of the CL and UCup. Surely a league this strong merits such a high coefficient?

You've really got to look at the whole picture when judging the system. So Spain aside, let's look at changing the percent of the country coefficient bonus that teams are allocated. In this case you would expect that weaker teams from a country a would have less chance of being given an unfair seeding advantage. However, in this case you also give those teams a bigger chance of drawing opponents who are very much better. This would put teams such as Ipswich, Freiburg and Sedan in the unseeded side of the draw for the first round of the UCup. I would expect all these "first-timers" to reach at least the second round (on the basis that they have proven themselves in their own leagues against big budget European regulars). Therefore they should be seeded in the first round.

An argument against this could be seen in Dutch clubs, who for a while enjoyed a high enough country coefficient to get three teams into the CL. This was mostly based on Ajax doing well in the CL in 1994-97. After that time, several much weaker teams were able to qualify for the CL 1st Phase and were subsequently found out. Although this probably has less to do with seeding, and rather is a problem of the qualification system.

So I would say overall I do not agree with your idea, because I believe that the system as it stands, gives a fairly good indicator of the relative strengths of a team. I believe the only way to judge this accurately, would be to look at all European matches over the last five seasons, looking at the percentage won by the side with the higher coefficient at that time. This would be an interesting statistic.

Author: kurt
Date: 24-07-2001, 18:35

The system is fine now, but in a few years the advantage is very big, then the 25% rule must be in charge. Propose : espanyal barcelona goes in europe, the seeding will then be higher then clubs , like Club Brugge, Anderlecht, PSV, Celtic, Rangers,Those clubs gets every year at least third round, if the ranking maintain 50% they will not be seeded anymore in the second round, certainly not the third round. The qualification system for champions league is very wrong for the country who is placed 6th, now it's Holland, they do not deserve 2 teams automatically in champions league and 1 in last qualification round, maybe Turky or Greece will take the 6th place, but they also do not deserve 3 teams in champions league.
Countries that are on spot 6 to 8, should have two tickets for champions league and 3 for uefacup, 6 is too many, no country kan keep the spot, one year they have 6 teams in europe a few years later 4, because the country is then on spot 9 or 10.

Author: WiSK
Date: 24-07-2001, 20:54

You give the example of Espanyol similar to my mentioning Ipswich, Freiburg and Sedan. If you think about it, it is the same. All these clubs are in the competition for the first time in at least five seasons. So they take over half the country coefficient as a starting point.

Now you are saying that it is an unfair advantage because these clubs will be seeded higher than some clubs who are regular in the competition. Now I say, let football decide if this is correct. If they lose against lower ranked opposition, then the coefficient of their country will fall. If they win, then the coefficient was justified.

If Espanyol were to qualify for Europe this season, then they will have been strong enough to play well against clubs like Real, Barça, Deportivo and Vallencia. In my eyes this means that they are likely to be strong in Europe also. Remember Mallorca a few years back who were newcomers and then got to the Cup Winners' Cup final?

Let us see how Ipswich, Freiburg and Sedan perform this season. Then we can judge better whether the system is accurate or not.

Author: WiSK
Date: 24-07-2001, 21:05

I agree with most of what you are saying about the number of qualifiers per country. My personal view, given the current format, is that the top sixteen ranked countries should have ONE direct entry into the CL group stage; the top three should have an extra club; plus the title holder makes 20 clubs. The other twelve should all have to qualify. Otherwise it's not really a champions league, is it?

I don't care really how many clubs go into the UEFA cup. The more the merrier really

Author: kurt
Date: 25-07-2001, 18:46

REPLY TO WISK

Last year, espanyol barcenol, real zaragoza,FS Guegnan,
they were all seeded and none of these club reaches the third round, more than the half of the clubs din't reach the second round, if the 50 % rule continues they will be seeded even in the third round, and respective clubs will be the victimes, club brugge, celtic, anderlecht, ajax will become unseeded and of course they will lose against, barcelona, juventus, valencia and other giants

Author: WiSK
Date: 26-07-2001, 00:07

I'm sorry to be so argumentative about this, but I cannot agree with you.

SIX of the nine Spanish clubs performed better in Europe than any of the Italian teams, any of the French teams, Austrians, Belgians, Dutch, etc. SEVEN of the nine Spanish clubs performed better in Europe than most of the Germans, and any Portugese, Scottish, Czechs, Swedes, etc. This means that on average Spanish clubs can wipe the floor with most other clubs. That's why they deserve such a high coefficient.

Espanyol were back in Europe for the first time in three seasons. They did reach round three of the UEFA Cup, and were knocked out by Porto, eventual quarter-finalists.

Zaragoza has little experience in Europe and were knocked out quickly. As a result, last season's Spanish coefficient is lower than it might have been if say Mallorca has been there instead.

Gueugnon shouldn't have been there. They were knocked out quickly, and you can see the effect on the French coefficient.

Author: putzeijs
Date: 26-07-2001, 10:50

I'm affraid my fellow coutryman Kurt is looking for a system that puts his team (Anderlecht) in a better position. I don't blame him. Both Kurt and WiSK have good arguments. But this time I think that Kurt has a point. We do have to aggree that (except the top 3 or 5 countries) each country very much depents on the results from 1 or 2 teams. Recent history has proven how teams like Genk and Heerenveen react when they got a place on country merrit reather then on there own european history. Debutants have to earn there place by beating big shots, not because they are from a big country. It's the same way in other sports too.

My reaction on this topic is: Reduce the importance of the seedings. Less seeded teams would give more thrilling games even in the first rounds. And isn't it more fun when something unexpected comes into the dull routine?
In tennis only 1/4 of the players are seeded, and the seeded players are not replaced when they are eliminated. In European footbal, 1/2 are seeded, and replaced each round.

But this discussion is taken by time. Introducing group stages reduce the importance of seeding.
And that's what we are trying to do in the new format topic. And the question on how many teams each country deserves is also an issue in that topic.

Re: Teamranking, not 50 %, but 25 % of the country ranking ?
Author: WiSK Date: 26-07-2001, 12:54	Yes, Kurt does make a strong point (it's difficult for me to admit), but as you imply his solution is not ideal. I would be more likely to subscribe to "debutants not being seeded" than to reducing the percentage from 50% to 25%. Unfortunately this would not solve the problem of Espanyol, who technically are not debutants (seeing as they played in Europe five years ago).

Author: ahmetunaydin
Date: 30-07-2001, 12:02

Great argument. Valid points from both sides. However, UEFA is very happy with the system as long as maximum number of G14 clubs remain in the CL. Otherwise, these clubs already declared that they would form their own league independent from UEFA. The 32 team CL was introduced to ensure G14 are always there with one or to exceptions. Money flows on the mediterranean coast. Therefore, as long as G14 are happy the system will remain. When Spanish dominance will disturb the the Italian or other members of the G14 UEFA will take steps to stabilize the system again. I support WISK's idea about a real CL, however, UEFA could not afford to leave any of the Spanish or Italian giants out of the CL.

Re: Teamranking, not 50 %, but 25 % of the country ranking ?
Author: christoph2136 Date: 31-07-2001, 15:17	One more item: Union Berlin. This is a club recently promoted to the SECOND German Division, but as the losing finalist of the DFB-Pokal (Schalke won 2-0) goes to UCup and even is seeded. (There are similar examples of minor league losing French Cup finalists.) In my opinion, second (or weaker) division clubs should never be seeded, regardless if they are debutants or not.

Author: kurt
Date: 31-07-2001, 19:53

REPLY : you already said, 6 of the nine spanish teams are the top, but the other 3 is not right that they also get a superseed, and it's not only spanisch clubs,i also mean englisch clubs, ipswhich town is higher seeded than celtic now, in a few years the advantage of the english team will be a lot greater. Teams like ipswish, union berlin, sedan are certainly not better than rangers,celtic, club brugge.The newbies havent had done anything, the other clubs are always in europe for a few, sometimes a lot of rounds.
Once again, now it is justified in a few years it will be wrong to keep the 50 % rule

Author: ahmetunaydin
Date: 01-08-2001, 09:27

What is the use of country coefficients in team ranking other than putting Ipswich town ahead of Celtic who has invested a lot of mony into the game and is a far better team. Ýs it only because the first commers are seeded like Union Berlin?

It is a team competition and seeding must be done in the order of mere strenght. New comers should not be seeded or country coefficien factor should ony be used in case of new comers at 25%. Countries like Spain are already awarded by the number of places given in European cups by the use of country coefficients.

From the team ranking point of view, I think, 5 year is a long period and reducing it to 3 should be considered. Atletico Madrid is a good example of a second division team ranking #9 in Europe because of this 5 year evaluation. I admit that Atletico may still be a better team than say #22, but a 3 year evaluation would better reflect the reality.