Co-efficient Corner: the Women’s Europa Cup Qualifiers are complete!
While this week saw Matchday 2 of the Women’s Champions League, for me, the Women’s Europa Cup matches were more consequential: the second leg of the Second Qualifying Round is now complete, meaning we’re ready for tomorrow’s draw for the competition proper.
In terms of the impact of this week’s games on the co-efficients, we know from last week what they mean it the UWCL, but let’s go over what the Europa Cup results mean.
For the Country Co-efficient, wins are still worth one point and draws half a point, with that tally divided by the number of teams a country was entitled to across both competitions. There are also 2.5 Bonus Points available for the winners of their ties for entering the Round of 16, again divided by the number of teams in each country.
For the Club Co-efficient, losing teams finish the season on 2.000 points (if they started in Q1), 3.000 points if they finished third in their UWCL Q2 mini-tournament, 3.500 points if they finished second in their mini-tournament, and 4.000 points for teams that dropped down from UWCL Q3.
Winners secure the 2.500 Bonus Points, so teams who started in Europa Cup Q1 will have 2.500 points as of tonight; those who came third in UWCL Q2 will have 3.500, there’ll be 4.000 for teams who came second in UWCL Q2, and the teams who dropped down from UWCL Q3 will have 4.500 at this point.
Another look at the Top 5
Before we get to the Women’s Europa Cup, let’s check in on the Top 5. Barcelona won 6–0 at Roma on Wednesday, extending their lead at the summit. OL Lyonnes drew at home to third-ranked Chelsea.
Finally, it remains tight for fourth and fifth in the rankings: Bayern Munich reclaimed fourth spot with a win at Benfica, while Arsenal could only draw at Paris FC.
Draws all round for the English clubs
Besides Arsenal and Chelsea, Manchester City hosted Real Madrid on Thursday: they too drew, meaning one point was added to the English Co-efficient.
Scotland bows out
With the second leg of the UWEC qualifiers, Heart of Midlothian lost 4–0 Real Sociedad, while Rangers lost 3–0 at home to Hammarby.
There’s no good news to be had at all from a Scottish perspective: no points were added to the Country Co-efficient this week, Scotland has no clubs left in either women’s competition, and the country has dropped out of the top 17 in the Country Rankings, meaning that although Scotland still has two spots in UWCL Q2 next season, without big changes to the Access List, that will drop to one place in UWCL Q2 and one in Q1 of the Europa Cup for 2028–29.
That being said, while Wednesday was a bad night, both clubs should be pleased with how things went overall: by getting this far, they overachieved against their co-efficients, and banked some extra points for their own rankings, which will doubtless come in handy in next season’s draws should they finish in the top 2 of this season’s SWPL. Perhaps some good can be salvaged out of things in the long term.
The last upset tracker of the season
With the last qualifying round concluding, it’s time for one last visit to the upset tracker.
Feyenoord’s aggregate win over Vålerenga was a shock, as was Spartak Myjava holding on against PAOK and PSV’s aggregate victory over Fortuna Hjørring.
Fenerbahçe completed their win over Minsk for the fourth upset of the evening, and Malmö’s victory over St. Pölten classed as a big shock: the Austrian outfit would have been seeded third in the Round of 16. Another epic shock came with lowest-ranked side Czarni Sosnowiec triumphing over Breiðablik.
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Finally, Brøndby’s aggregate win over Sporting was an upset, as was Torreense’s win over Metalist Kharkiv.
In total, the eight shocks represent 50% of the ties in this round, producing an overall upset rate across the UWEC qualifiers of 46%, the highest rate of any UEFA Club Competition this season. 41% of all Women’s Club Qualifiers went against the co-efficient, and 37% of all qualifying ties across the men’s and women’s game.
The state of the nations
There are 25 countries who have already lost their last/only representation in Women’s Club Competitions; this week there were 14 countries who could have joined them. In the event, only eight did: they were Belarus, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Romania, Scotland and Ukraine.
The following countries also lost representation for the first time this season: Austria, Denmark, Norway and Portugal.
Tomorrow’s draw
With the Europa Cup qualifiers the last to conclude, we now have the draw for the competition proper. For readers discovering this competition for the first time, the process for this resembles the knockout stage draws for the other four competitions, but there are some elements that echo the qualifying draws.
So the most obvious common ground is that all of the remaining rounds are drawn in this ceremony, and positions are fixed, albeit not to the same extent in the others.
As for the seedings, they have to be derived by co-efficient — there isn’t a League Stage to determine the 16 teams’ positions after all — but here’s where is gets interesting: the seeded teams are drawn like in the other competitions: the first- and second-ranked teams are paired, with one going in the silver half of the draw and the other going in the green half. The same is true of the third- and fourth-ranked teams, fifth and sixth, then seventh and eighth. However, the unseeded teams are a complete free-for-all, so it’s possible for the highest-ranked seeded team to face the highest-ranked unseeded team in the Round of 16.
First, officials will draw out one of the seventh- and eighth-ranked teams to determine who goes in the silver half of the draw. Then they’ll draw out the unseeded team they’ll play. This is the next distinction: the UEFA Regulations don’t predetermine who’ll play the first leg at home. Instead, like in the qualifiers, the two balls are drawn into a central bowl before they’re opened, and the first team drawn out will play the first leg at home. Then the other team from the seeded pair will be drawn against an unseeded team. Then we do the fifth- and sixth-ranked teams, then the third- and fourth-ranked teams, then the top two.
Last season, there were further draws to determine which teams played at home first in the Quarter Finals, Semis and Final, but this time, the order for the subsequent rounds has been decided in advance — we’ll see what the draw procedure says when it’s published.
Right! Now we’ve established that, let’s look at the seedings. These are the seeded teams, in their pairs, with Real Sociedad and Rosenborg gaining from the shocks. Sparta Prague, Brann and Ajax have potentially easier draws from the Quarter Finals onwards.
And finally, the eight unseeded teams.
A few thoughts on Manchester City
On Friday, the Nations League fixtures were overshadowed when news leaked that of the 115 charges of FFP rule breaches over a nine-year period levelled against Man City, the Premier League had found the club guilty of all but one of them. As things stand, no sanctions have been decided on yet and the Club do intend to appeal so it’s doubtful that we’ll see any immediate impact on their presence in the Champions League (though if you are interested in Article 29 of the regulations, which details what happens if a club is disqualified in the middle of the League Stage, you’ll find it here).
Given that UEFA have tried to sanction City for FFP breaches before only to have a two-year ban overturned by Court of Arbitration for Sport, my guess is that it will be left to English football authorities to decide on sanctions in the first instance. Fans of opposing clubs are calling for the club’s expulsion to the EFL or even lower down the pyramid than that and unless the appeal process and final sanction take nine months to complete, I’d be stunned if City are given the licence needed to enter any UEFA competition next season.
Another variable in this is the women’s team: the charges are entirely against the men’s team and have been levelled by the Premier League but given that the women’s team has been an official part of the club since 2012, I wouldn’t be 100% confident of the women’s team escaping scrutiny from either the WSL or UEFA. I shall be keeping my eye on both teams for now.
Tomorrow: the Women’s Europa Cup Draw
More immediately, we have a week-long interlude in the UEFA Club Football Calendar, but the draw for the Women’s Europa Cup is coming up tomorrow. I’ll be here to look over the outcome, so stay tuned!
