The Netherlands has had an extremely difficult first European round. The Eredivisie players achieved only one win (Feyenoord) and a draw (Ajax) and saw France, the major competitor in the coefficient rankings, reduce the gap enormously. On the other hand, there are mediocre results from Portugal, which made only minimal progress.
The Netherlands is committed to holding on to fifth place in the five-year UEFA ranking. This would give the Eredivisie no less than three guaranteed places for the Champions League (plus a preliminary round ticket) for the 2025/26 season. However, France is breathing down the Netherlands’ neck and has already come a lot closer in the first round.
Thanks to Feyenoord’s victory over Celtic (2-0) and Ajax’s victory against Olympique Marseille (3-3), the Netherlands received a total of three club points. These are shared by five European participants (with which the country started the season): this gives the Netherlands a total of 0.6 points for this first round. The Netherlands did not receive any points for the other participants: PSV lost to Arsenal in the Champions League (4-0) and AZ gave away a 0-3 lead against Zrinjski Mostar (4-3).
France has no fewer than six teams active in the group stage and can therefore potentially score many more points. The Ligue 1 clubs all remained undefeated in round 1. There were victories for Paris Saint-Germain (2-0 win against Borussia Dortmund), Stade Rennes (3-0 against Maccabi Haïfa), Lille OSC (2-0 against Olimpija Ljubljana) and draws for Olympique Marseille (3-3 against Ajax ) and RC Lens (1-1 against Sevilla). France takes a total of 9 club points, shared by 6 participants: 1.5 points for the country.
Portugal is active in the Champions League with no fewer than three teams. Only one of them managed to win, that was FC Porto (1-3 against Shakhtar Donetsk). The other teams lost: Sporting Braga 1-2 against Napoli, Benfica 0-2 against Red Bull Salzburg. In the Europa League, Sporting Portugal achieved a victory (1-2 at Sturm Graz). Portugal took 4 club points, shared by 6 participants: an additional 0.667 points.
The Netherlands has almost lost its large lead over France, although the Ligue 1 clubs are still behind the Eredivisie in the ranking. Portugal currently has a huge deficit and needs a miracle to catch up with the Netherlands this season. The difference between the Netherlands and Portugal is almost 7 points.
The coefficient ranking as of 21-09-2023
5. Netherlands 55,700 (+0,600)
6. France 53,831 (+1,500)
7. Portugal 48,982 (+0,667)