Thursday, March 11, 2021 at 11:31 AM• Rian Rosendaal

A victory of Ajax over Young Boys on Thursday evening is very favorable for the place of the Netherlands on the coefficient list of UEFA. When the Amsterdam club wins in the first leg in the eighth final of the Europa League, seventh place will be taken from Russia. The backlog is currently only 0.382 points and a victory over the Swiss opponent gives Ajax 0.4 points.

If Ajax wins, the Netherlands will occupy seventh place until the end of the season, as competitors Russia, Belgium and Austria no longer have participants in the European competitions. It would be the first time since the 2005/06 season that the Netherlands ended a football year in seventh place. At the time, the increase was due to the good performances of PSV and AZ in the Champions League and UEFA Cup respectively, the predecessor of the Europa League. Both clubs reached the semi-finals in the 2004/05 season. Only in 2006/07 was the seventh place taken over by Romania.

The advance of the last years on the coefficient list is mainly due to Ajax. In the 2017/18 season, the Netherlands had dropped to fourteenth place. A few years later, however, a permanent place in the top ten is a fact. Ajax was in the final of the Europa League in 2017, while two years later, in 2019, the semi-final was the final destination in the Champions League. Ajax’s victory over Young Boys will give the Netherlands an advantage for next season.

The cup winner of the current number seven Russia automatically qualifies for the main tournament of the Europa League for next season. The play-offs may be skipped, because the winner of the Conference League, the third European club tournament that UEFA has devised, will not have a winner until next year. If the Russian cup winner qualifies for the Europa League or Champions League next season via the competition, that European ticket will be taken over by the Dutch cup winner.