This page was the main page of the 2003/2004 season. All text has to be interpreted within that context. No changes are applied.

On this site you will find everything about the calculation of coefficients and rankings used for the qualification and seeding of teams for the Champions League and the UEFA Cup. There are no data on individual matches other then the results. Results and qualification data for the UEFA Intertoto Cup are not available at this site.

Specific data for the qualification of teams and formats of the Champions League and UEFA Cup for the 2003/2004 season can be found at the pages below.

• Qualification 2003/2004 (list of teams per country)
• Seeding Champions League 2003/2004
• Seeding UEFA Cup 2003/2004
• Calendar 2003/2004

Champions League

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
1st Qualifying Round	July	22 champions from countries ranked 27 or lower
2nd Qualifying Round	Jul-Aug	involving 28 teams: 11 winners from 1st qualifying round 11 champions from countries ranked 16-26 6 second-placed teams from countries ranked 10-15
3rd Qualifying Round	August	involving 32 teams: 14 winners from 2nd qualifying round 6 champions from countries ranked 10-15 3 second-placed teams from countries ranked 7-9 6 third-placed teams from countries ranked 1-6 3 fourth-placed teams from countries ranked 1-3
Group Stage	Sep-Dec	involving 8 groups of 4 teams each: 16 winners from 3rd qualifying round 9 champions from countries ranked 1-9 6 second-placed teams from countries ranked 1-6 1 defending cup holder
Play-offs	Feb-May	involving 16 teams: 8 group second-placed teams and 8 winners from group stage play the 2nd round, the quarter finals, the semi finals, and the final

Losing teams in the 3rd qualifying round enter the 1st round of the UEFA Cup, and third-placed teams from the group stage enter the 3rd round of the UEFA Cup.

No country can have more than 4 representatives in the Champions League. This implies that, if the defending cup holder comes from one of the top three ranked countries, and did not qualify directly for the Champions League, the fourth-placed team of that country has to participate in the UEFA Cup (e.g. Real Zaragoza in 2000).

If the defending cup holder already qualified directly for the group stage of the Champions League, the champion of the 10th country on the country ranking list will gain direct access to the group stage, the champion of the 16th country on the country ranking list will gain direct access to the 3rd qualifying round, and the champions of the 27th and 28th country on the country ranking list will gain direct access to the 2nd qualifying round. Similar changes are made if the cup holder already qualified directly for one of the qualification rounds, or if the cup holder did not qualify directly but is from one of the top three ranked countries.

If in the group stage of the Champions League two or more teams finish equal on points after all the group matches have been played, the following criteria are applied to determine the group rankings:

1. Higher number of points obtained in the matches between the teams in question
2. Superior goal difference from the matches between the teams in question
3. Higher number of goals scored away from home in the matches between the teams in question
4. Superior goal difference from all group matches played
5. Higher number of goals scored
6. Coefficient points accumulated by the club in question, as well as its association, over the previous five seasons

See the Regulations of the UEFA Champions League 2003/2004 (pdf file of 570 kB at uefa.com) for a complete and formal description of all regulations.

UEFA Cup

UEFA CUP
Qualifying Round	August	involving 84 teams: 33 Cup Winners from countries ranked 17-49 33 second-placed teams from countries ranked 16-48 13 third-placed teams from countries ranked 9-21 3 teams of the Fair Play competition 2 champions of Andorra and San Marino
Round 1	September	involving 96 teams: 42 winners from the qualifying round 16 Cup Winners from countries ranked 1-16 2 third-placed teams from countries ranked 7-8 5 fourth-placed teams from countries ranked 4-8 8 fifth-placed teams from countries ranked 1-8 3 sixth-placed teams from countries ranked 1-3 16 teams eliminated from the 3rd qualifying round of the Champions League 3 Intertoto teams 1 defending cup holder
Round 2	October	involving 48 teams: 48 winners of the first round
Round 3	November	involving 32 teams: 24 winners of the secound round 8 third-placed teams from the group stage of the Champions League
Round 4	March	involving 16 teams: 16 winners of the third round
Play-offs	March-May	involving 8 teams: 8 winners of the fourth round play the quarter finals, the semi finals, and the final

If the cup winner of a country also qualifies for the Champions League, then the losing team of the cup final is qualified for the UEFA Cup. If both cup finalists qualify for the Champions League, then an additional team based on league position will be qualified. However, the losing cup finalist does not get the UEFA Cup cup-winner spot, but is treated as a league entrant. The 'cup-winner' spot of that country goes to the team with the highest league position. In some countries (England and France) the last league entrant position is given to the League Cup Winner.

The place for the defending cup holder is only used when that team has not otherwise qualified for either the Champions League or the UEFA Cup. If this place is not used then the cup winners of the 17th and 18th countries on the country ranking list will gain direct access to the 1st round.

See the Regulations of the UEFA Cup 2003/2004 (pdf file of 470 kB at uefa.com) for a complete and formal description of all regulations.

UEFA Country Ranking

Because the UEFA changed the calculation of the yearly coefficients suddenly with the calculation of the rankings of 1999, there are two sets of coefficients for 1995-1998. Also for this reason I split my archive in 2 sections: see database.

The UEFA country ranking is computed by the sum of 5 coefficients in the last 5 years. To determine the participants in the Champions League and the UEFA Cup the last year ranking is used, because each country should know at the start of the season how many places it disposes.

UEFA Team Ranking

The UEFA team ranking is computed by the sum of 5 coefficients in the last 5 years. In this list the yellow lines with country information indicate the lowest possible value for a team of that country (even if that team didn't play any game in the last five years). The most recent team ranking is used for seeding of clubs for draws in the Champions League and the UEFA Cup.

Before 1999 a number of strong teams in the UEFA Cup were seeded such that those teams do not meet in the first two rounds. To determine these teams, the sum of the ratio of the number of points achieved, divided by the number of games played by each team, was calculated for the past five years.

Results