England & Spain ahead
© Imago
With good performance on an international stage and a finalist in the Champions and Europa League, the Bundesliga secured a fifth place in the premier class last year. In all likelihood, this will not be repeated for the time being. In the 2024/25 UEFA annual ranking, Germany’s highest division only fifth in front of the round of 16 starts.
With 16.046 points – as of February 21 – the Bundesliga is just behind Portugal (16,050). The in front of it in front of Italy (18,187), Spain (19.035) and England (20,892) are already removed, especially Laliga and Premier League, which are also strongly represented in the three competitions. Only the first two get an additional starting place for the premier class next season. Germany had become second behind Italy (21,000) in the past season with 19.357 points, which still slipped Borussia Dortmund into the Champions League as a fifth fifth. This was FC Bologna for series A.
Last year’s finalist BVB is still in the racing in the premier class and now meets Losc Lille, like FC Bayern and Bayer Leverkusen, who are now dealing with each other in a German duel – only the Worses Elf qualified for the round of 16. In the meantime, the black and yellow and the Munich residents had outliers, such as Bavaria’s defeats at Aston Villa and Feyenoord Rotterdam, where points were left behind. However, the departure of VfB Stuttgart and especially from RB Leipzig with just one victory hit even more heavier.
In the Europa League, Eintracht Frankfurt qualified for the round of the last 16, where Ajax Amsterdam is now waiting. However, the crisping TSG Hoffenheim ended prematurely. And with the 1st FC Heidenheim, also stumbling in the league, the only German representative in the Conference League had to say goodbye to the round of 16 playoffs on Thursday evening.
According to Champions League reform: four more starting places
The Champions League was fundamentally redesigned before this season. The group phase was replaced by a league – with 36 instead of 32 teams. As already described, two of these newly created places are awarded through the current association coefficients, the two more as follows: Starting place three goes to the club, which becomes the third in the table of the fifth best league in Europe according to the UEFA coefficient, which is currently the French Ligue 1 corresponds. Starting position four gets a national title holder of a smaller league about the master path of the Champions League qualification.
For Germany, the 2025/26 season is likely to remain with seven representatives in the European Cup. The first four from the Bundesliga compete in the Champions League, the DFB Cup winner and the fifth league in the Europa League and the League sixth in the Conference League. However, there can still be shifts if the cup winner has already secured a place in the Champions League or Europa League via the Bundesliga (Regarding the rules: This is how the association club coefficient ranking is calculated).
