Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Sport
Ian Doyle

Liverpool cannot rely on Man City and Man United in the Champions League next season

Suffice to say there weren't exactly many Liverpool supporters enthused at the final whistle sounding at the Ataturk Stadium on Saturday evening.

The Manchester City project was brought to an inevitable - if somewhat surprisingly belated - conclusion as the moneybags Etihad outfit won the Champions League for the first time by beating Inter Milan.

They will now be favourites to next season move another step nearer Liverpool's English record of six European Cups, with the Reds - who will instead play in the Europa League - unable to stop the relentless Pep Guardiola machine.

But while it would be some stretch to suggest Liverpool fans should be cheering on City's quest for a second Champions League, there is good reason to hope they - and in fact every Premier League team in Europe next term - go reasonably far in the competition.

READ MORE: FSG move to next stage of Liverpool plan after backroom change and £4.2bn boost

READ MORE: Liverpool unleashed new Roberto Firmino after beating Manchester United to surprise transfer

And it's all due to UEFA's revamp of their blue riband event.

From the 2024/25 campaign, as part of a restructuring of the programme - there will be just one group in the opening round using a 'Swiss model' system to determine fixtures - the number of teams who qualify will be increased from 32 to 36.

Of the four extra clubs, one will come from the fifth-ranked team by UEFA, which has regularly been France. Another space will be occupied from an extra team through the Champions Path qualifying rounds, which is open only to teams from lower-ranked leagues who have won their domestic title.

And the final two spaces are awarded to the two countries who have had the highest UEFA coefficient score the previous season. Each team in European competition is given such a score based on their results that campaign, with bonuses for progressing deep into each of the three tournaments weighted towards the more senior events - for example, reaching the final of the Champions League earns more points than doing likewise in the Europa Conference League.

Nevertheless, West Ham United claiming the latter earlier this month earned them 31 points this season, compared to 33 for City lifting the Champions League, on the basis of the Hammers winning all bar one of their 13 games in the competition. City won eight of their Champions League matches. Liverpool, for context, earned 19 coefficient points this term.

The coefficient of each country is then averaged by the number of clubs competing in Europe. It means that, if the revamp was taking place next term, England - with an average of 23.000 this campaign - and Italy - whose teams averaged 22.357 - would both get an extra place in the Champions League group stage, which in their respective cases would go to whoever finishes fifth in the league.

Only once in the last seven years have England not been in the top two of the country coefficients, with Spain managing it five times in that period. Along with Italy this season, Germany and Holland have also finished in the top two on one occasion since 2016.

And with the concentration only on form from the one season, the likes of Brighton and Aston Villa - who will feature in the Europa League and Europa Conference League respectively - will not be hampered by a lack of recent European pedigree.

Of course, Jurgen Klopp's side can bolster England's coefficient themselves by going deep into a Europa League tournament they will begin as favourites and, should they win, will qualify them for the Champions League regardless.

And they will be determined to not leave themselves reliant on other clubs nor European success by ensuring their spell outside the Premier League's top four is restricted to just the solitary season to secure a return among Europe's elite.

Nevertheless, the incoming change adds an extra layer of intrigue to what is likely to be a hugely competitive scrap for Champions League qualification next term. After all, with Newcastle United having now clearly joined the current 'big six', seven into four simply doesn't go.

READ NEXT:

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.