Scottish football's final co-efficient tally for this season

One of the consequences of not performing great in European football, or performing great and not being clinical enough to get the desired results, is that the overall co-efficient for the country takes a hit. This year, it would appear it has taken a bit of a battering compared to other years recently.

Celtic struggled to find the finishing touch to concert all their great efforts into points, in the end only nabbing two points after draws with Ukranians Shakhtar Donetsk. This added 6 points to the coefficient in total, but there are divided by five at the end due to the amount of teams participating in the tournament from said country.

(Photo by PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU/AFP via Getty Images)

theRangers managed 6.5 points to add to the overall, following their run through the qualifying rounds before the official group stage football of the Champions League started in earnest back in September. However, they counter-balanced this success with proving to be SIMPLY THE WORST team in UEFA Champions League history – losing all six games to finish on 0 points and a goal difference of -20!

Heart of Midlothian did not too bad considering it was the first they had been in Europe in years too. They managed to add a total of 4 points to our cause after beating Latvians Riga home and away. Again though, these were sandwiched between heavy defeats to Fiorentina and Istanbul Basaksheir.

Finally, Dundee United contributed just one point after there famous win against Celtic’s old foes AZ Alkmaar at Tannadice during UEFA Conference League qualifiers in the summer. That 1-0 win saw just one point given to Scotland for their efforts as they were subsequently humbled over in Holland, leaving them out of all European competition for 2022.

In conclusion then, not a great year for Scottish clubs in Europe. Hearts did give us several points after a couple of group stage wins but that merely made up the shortfall from theRangers zero points return in the group stage, as well as Dundee United being excluded altogether from competing at group stage level.

The final coefficient points then are 3.5. This meant that Belgium was able to leapfrog us into 8th place in the Coefficient Table for European countries. The overall points sees Scotland sitting in 9th place on 36.400, ahead of Austria who have no more teams competing and on 33.600 (The Herald). So we still have a bit of breathing space in that regard.

However, we want to maintain our place in the top 10 as it gives the country the opportunity at direct involvement in the UEFA Champions League group stages. Celtic were straight in this year without having the stress and agony of playing qualifiers. The cash flow that it generates just for mere participation alone is exponentially better for even winning the League in Scotland.

Paul Gillespie