Greetings everyone, this is now a baton exchange kind of post.🙂 The live blog by @mckane ended with this paragraph –

"As hard as it is to say, my support now goes to the two representatives of the EPL in the UCL. If they go far they might as well win us the fifth spot that will increase my beloved Man United's chance..."

I boldened a part of his note to indicate my area of interest here.

It is no longer a secret that TWO LEAGUES will be awarded with extra places in next season's Champions League as part of the revamp that will see it expand to a 36-team competition. Now first of all it's 32-team competition currently, so next season four teams will be added. Two of these four will come from the very best two teams across all European competitions this season.

A little Background

Firstly according to the Hive post– Spain is in trouble– we can safely rule Spain out of contention.

Let's do a little revision. The first five of the official UEFA country coefficient for last season was given as–

England – 23.000
Italy– 22.357
Germany– 17.125
Spain– 16.571
Belgium– 14.200

Notably, Spain was pushed down to fourth, whereas in the past half a decade they were mostly first or second. Having looked at the league's summer business I concluded that the Spanish league wouldn't be able to do better than last season. Sure enough that's what is happening. They are currently 4th( again) in the ranking and they could go down more.

People seem quick to point out how well the Spanish sides have performed in this first phase of the Champions League(CL), yet European competitions don't start and end with the CL, there are two others that are also bonafide European competitions.

One of them is the Europa League(EL). Where were the La liga teams? They couldn't stop the La Liga ranking from plunging southward. Whereas an English team like Brighton is doing wonders, a Spanish team called Real Betis were beaten AT HOME, by the Scots, Rangers, 3–2. Amazing! Thus Betis finished 3rd and bowed out of the competition and Rangers topped the group.

Now that's Brighton, a newbie in Europe in a strong field of old European war-horses– Ajax, Marseille and AEK Athens– Brighton topped the group. Okay Villareal is through, topping their group. But 3 English clubs are through, ALL TOPPING THEIR GROUPS— Brighton, West Ham, Liverpool.

It is worthy of note that the Spanish league has no single representative in the other competition –Europa Conference league(ECL). That's poor.

screenshot from source

Who will be the top two?

So it's a league's performance in these three competitions that determines the ranking of the league. Currently, Italy tops the log that keeps changing with every European match day. Germany and England 2nd and 3rd respectively. [Table above,looking under 2023-24 column]

I have monitored proceedings since the start of the season when country's like Turkey and Belgium were leading( ofcourse as they amassed points through qualifying), even Spain were ahead of England about a month ago, but I knew things will even out and the real shape of things will emerge as the season wears on.

I have done some checks and they help me see the advantages England and Italy will have over Germany, judging by the strength of their representation across these competitions. So I go with England and Italy to finish as the two highest ranked sides and thus who will each be awarded the 5th CL slot.

ENGLAND AND ITALY MY PICK

What say ye?

Cheers