On the five -year ranking, on the basis of which the distribution of the European tickets is based, the lead of number six the Netherlands on first pursuer Portugal has shrunk again. The Netherlands played 62,366 together in five seasons and Portugal follows 59,466, while Belgium is well back with 56,150.
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The harvest of this season of the Dutch clubs in Europe remains very scanty, because with the five defeats of Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord, FC Utrecht and Go Ahead Eagles in the first group duels of the group phases in the Champions League and Europa League, this week, Feyoord, FC Utrecht also started to be the Uit de Group’s FASESE Die. League with a 4-0 defeat at AEK Larnaca after an early red card for Alexandre Penetra.
Dutch clubs little productive
It is striking how much effort Dutch clubs, which are always advocating the attacking feature philosophy, have to score in a European context. In eleven duels in the European group phases, a Dutch club has only scored four times. Twice through PSV, Ruben van Bommel against Royale Union Saint-Gilloise and Ismael Saibari against Bayer Leverkusen, and twice through Go Ahead Eagles via striker Milan Smit. Ajax, Feyenoord and FC Utrecht have never been able to score in 180 minutes and the same applies to AZ in 90 minutes.
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Portugal did better than the Netherlands this week. After the defeats of Benfica (1-0 against Chelsea) and Sporting (2-1 against Napoli) in the Champions League, the FC Porto of former Ajax trainer Francesco Farioli and Braga booked excellent victories in the Europa League. Braga won 2-0 at Celtic, while FC Porto was 2-1 too strong in its own house for Red Star Belgrade. Partly due to these results, Portugal is first on the coefficient ranking of this season with 6,800.
Walk in on Belgium
The Netherlands is twelfth with 4,416 points, but has made up for something of the backlog in Belgium. Belgium experienced a Rampweek with three defeats of the three remaining European playing teams. After the defeats of Club Brugge (2-1 against Atalanta Bergamo) and Royale Union Saint-Gilloise (4-0 against Newcastle United) in the Champions League, RC Genk also went down. The Belgian Europa League participant fell 1-0 against Ferencvaros in-house. At the ranking of this season this week, the Belgians dropped from fifth to ninth place with 5,300 points.
In the slightly longer term, it looks very good for the Belgians who are currently taking sixth place on the five-year ranking of the period 2022-2027 with a large lead over Portugal and the Netherlands. The provisional point total of the Belgians over this period is 49,550, while Portugal follows 46,550 and the Netherlands with 43.166. That is why it is for the Netherlands, which sees the record year 2021/2022 for that five-year ranking, it is important to end this and next season well above Belgium and Portugal, otherwise the sixth place and therefore the two regular Champions League tickets will be lost.