Coefficientwatch

[craigkillie]

4 hours ago, prodcast said:

Wouldn't a team who won a domestic cup have a better chance of doing well in Europe than a team finishing fourth or fifth in the league?

Not really. Cups can be a bit of a lottery, league position is based on sustained ability across a season.

[GordonS]

On 07/08/2020 at 16:51, Ludo*1 said:

Football is a different scenario entirely from real life.

If Celtic and Rangers were denied Europe season in, season out, we'd still be in the exact same situation we are now. Celtic would still win the league. They'd still have a massive financial advantage. 

There'd be less money coming into the game and as such the quality of players you and I watch week in, week out would decline.  The best of the rest wouldn't get any wee European jaunts.

This is branch office thinking. Why are clubs with support bases and income levels comparable to Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts in countries comparable to Scotland all so far ahead of them, if those three have the privilege of the Old Firm's beneficent light? It's because we're not trying hard enough to make the players that can compete. And money has little to do with that.

[Ludo*1]

5 hours ago, GordonS said:

This is branch office thinking. Why are clubs with support bases and income levels comparable to Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts in countries comparable to Scotland all so far ahead of them, if those three have the privilege of the Old Firm's beneficent light? It's because we're not trying hard enough to make the players that can compete. And money has little to do with that.

Are they? 

Which countries clubs, comparable to those are well ahead? 

[AmericanFan]

23 hours ago, d31 said:

Yea not bad indeed. If successful it's not bad having the 4 qualifiers.

Truth. 
If you can rack up the wins the qualifiers can really help.

[prodcast]

15 hours ago, craigkillie said:

Not really. Cups can be a bit of a lottery, league position is based on sustained ability across a season.

I'm quite keen on the idea of a 'cup team' who have the knack of doing well in head-to-head decisive matches.

They would surely do better in European knock-out qualifiers (and so improve the coefficient) than a team finishing fifth in the league by beating struggling teams in routine fixtures? 

New managers often seem keen on winning a cup of any sort in order to give players a certain positive mentality.

[craigkillie]

There's certainly no evidence of that given that the only teams who have qualified for Europe courtesy exclusively of winning the Scottish Cup in the last decade have been Dundee United (2010), Hearts (2012), St Johnstone (2014) and Hibs (2016). Of those, Dundee United and Hibs were eliminated in their first tie, while Hearts and St Johnstone each won a single tie before being knocked out in the following round.

In comparison, Aberdeen, who have generally qualified through their league placing, have regularly made it through two ties, as have on at least one occasion Motherwell, St Johnstone and Hibs when qualifying via their league position.

Edited August 13, 2020 by craigkillie

[prodcast]

Interesting info. I was wondering if using Aberdeen was a fair comparison since they don't usually occupy that final European place, or whether many of the qualifiers-via-league you mention finished fifth place in order to qualify - a fairly mediocre achievement when set against winning a cup. I'll admit that your evidence of lack of success of qualifiers-via-cup does nowt for my argument, though.

[realmadrid]

On 13/08/2020 at 13:58, craigkillie said:

There's certainly no evidence of that given that the only teams who have qualified for Europe courtesy exclusively of winning the Scottish Cup in the last decade have been Dundee United (2010), Hearts (2012), St Johnstone (2014) and Hibs (2016). Of those, Dundee United and Hibs were eliminated in their first tie, while Hearts and St Johnstone each won a single tie before being knocked out in the following round.

In comparison, Aberdeen, who have generally qualified through their league placing, have regularly made it through two ties, as have on at least one occasion Motherwell, St Johnstone and Hibs when qualifying via their league position.

In our case our win was against Luzern which could be the sort of match you would get in the Europa league 3rd qualifying round as the Swiss were 13th at the time, we then lost to Spartak Trnava from Slovakia who were 30th at the time and would not have been in the new style Europa league. Our problem was always the matches with the lower ranked nations not when we faced a challenge. 

Did Hearts not get Liverpool in 2012-13 and lost their only tie. It was however the final play off round so they would under the new system drop into the conference league

As UEFA quite rightly in my view put something on winning something rather than just finishing in the top 4 , or in some clubs eyes staying in the league the cup winner should get a boost. Will if work for our coefficient in the long run , possibly not but only time will tell. 

[GordonS]

On 13/08/2020 at 07:56, Ludo*1 said:

Are they? 

Which countries clubs, comparable to those are well ahead? 

The average attendances of Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts is similar to or higher than:

FC Copenhagen 15k

Brondby 14k

Midtylland 7k

Molde (beat Hibs) 7k

Brugge 24k

Standard Liege 21k

Anderlecht 18k

Genk 17k

Gent 17k

Rapid Wien 17k

Sturm Graz 11k

RB Salzburg (I know, I know) 9k

LASK 5k

Omnia Nicosia 5k

APOEL Nicosia 4k

Apollon Limassol (who beat Aberdeen a couple of years ago)  2.5k

Porto 25k

Sporting 21k

Braga 7k

Dinamo Kiev 12k

Red Star Belgrade 11k

Partizan Belgrade 4k

Young Boys Berne 16k

Basel 15k

FC Zurich 6k

Rijeka (beat Aberdeen home and away last season) 4k

Dinamo Zagreb 3.4k

Maribor (beat Aberdeen & Hibs) 2.8k

Birkikara (beat Hearts) under 500.

 

I could go on. How many of them could outspend Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts on wages? A handful. How many would be favourites to put any of our three out of Europe? All of them.

 

[Arch Stanton]

4 minutes ago, GordonS said:

I could go on. How many of them could outspend Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts on wages? A handful. How many would be favourites to put any of our three out of Europe? All of them.

 

Seriously?

All of the Portuguese, Belgian, Austrian, Swiss.

[Les Cabbage]

I believe the points are slightly different this year for one legged ties.

W=3 D=2 & L=1, whereas previously it was W=2 D=1 & L=0

These are obviously halved in the qualifying rounds.

So Celtics win last night takes us to 1.5 points and with 5 teams in Europe that gives us 0.3 to kick off.

We’ll probably find the 1 point for a loss will help lower nations slightly as it assumes effectively the team qualifying to win one game and draw the other when results where teams were knocked out were more often than not 2 x victories, especially against the lower nations.

Edited August 19, 2020 by Les Cabbage

[ScoRoss]

5 minutes ago, Les Cabbage said:

I believe the points are slightly different this year for one legged ties.

W=3 D=2 & L=1, whereas previously it was W=2 D=1 & L=0

These are obviously halved in the qualifying rounds.

So Celtics win last night takes us to 1.5 points and with 5 teams in Europe that gives us 0.3 to kick off.

We’ll probably find the 1 point for a loss will help lower nations slightly as it assumes effectively the team qualifying to win one game and draw the other when results where teams were knocked out were more often than not 2 x victories, especially against the lower nations.

Only four Scottish teams in Europe this season, so it's 0.375

[Mordecai]

I believe the points are slightly different this year for one legged ties.
W=3 D=2 & L=1, whereas previously it was W=2 D=1 & L=0
These are obviously halved in the qualifying rounds.
So Celtics win last night takes us to 1.5 points and with 5 teams in Europe that gives us 0.3 to kick off.
We’ll probably find the 1 point for a loss will help lower nations slightly as it assumes effectively the team qualifying to win one game and draw the other when results where teams were knocked out were more often than not 2 x victories, especially against the lower nations.

0.375 points, there's only 4 teams in Europe this season. It's next season it increases to 5 teams.

[Les Cabbage]

You’re both bang on, I don’t know why I added up 4 and counted to 5, 5 from next season, I’ll make myself a stronger coffee (and maybe go back to work)

[Mordecai]

You’re both bang on, I don’t know why I added up 4 and counted to 5, 5 from next season, I’ll make myself a stronger coffee (and maybe go back to work)

I was wondering how they were going to sort out the points this season for the 1 legged ties. This seems the fairest solution as it would've been unfair for the lower ranked countries in the qualifiers to lose out on half the available points. I don't know if it makes much sense to have the new system in place beyond the qualifiers though, unless the group stages were to be 3 games instead of 6. It makes more sense to me to revert back to 2 points for a win from the group stage onwards if it's no longer single legged ties.

[Les Cabbage]

2 minutes ago, Mordecai said:

9 minutes ago, Les Cabbage said:

You’re both bang on, I don’t know why I added up 4 and counted to 5, 5 from next season, I’ll make myself a stronger coffee (and maybe go back to work)

I was wondering how they were going to sort out the points this season for the 1 legged ties. This seems the fairest solution as it would've been unfair for the lower ranked countries in the qualifiers to lose out on half the available points. I don't know if it makes much sense to have the new system in place beyond the qualifiers though, unless the group stages were to be 3 games instead of 6. It makes more sense to me to revert back to 2 points for a win from the group stage onwards if it's no longer single legged ties.

Yup, that’s only for the one legged ties, goes back to normal from the play off stage

[charger29]

11 hours ago, GordonS said:

The average attendances of Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts is similar to or higher than:
FC Copenhagen 15k
Brondby 14k
Midtylland 7k
Molde (beat Hibs) 7k
Brugge 24k
Standard Liege 21k
Anderlecht 18k
Genk 17k
Gent 17k
Rapid Wien 17k
Sturm Graz 11k
RB Salzburg (I know, I know) 9k
LASK 5k
Omnia Nicosia 5k
APOEL Nicosia 4k
Apollon Limassol (who beat Aberdeen a couple of years ago)  2.5k
Porto 25k
Sporting 21k
Braga 7k
Dinamo Kiev 12k
Red Star Belgrade 11k
Partizan Belgrade 4k
Young Boys Berne 16k
Basel 15k
FC Zurich 6k
Rijeka (beat Aberdeen home and away last season) 4k
Dinamo Zagreb 3.4k
Maribor (beat Aberdeen & Hibs) 2.8k
Birkikara (beat Hearts) under 500.
 
I could go on. How many of them could outspend Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts on wages? A handful. How many would be favourites to put any of our three out of Europe? All of them.
 

According to UEFA the average wage bill for the 4th-6th placed teams in these leagues are €7m (NOR), €12m (POR), €13m (AUT), €14m (DEN), €14 (SUI), and €20m (BEL).
Edit: Had another look and noticed UEFA change how they calculate the figures depending on the country. For 4th-6th place it's more likely to be ~€5m (NOR), €6m (SCO), ~€9m (DEN), ~€9m (AUT), ~€10m (SUI), €12m (POR) and €20m (BEL).

You mentioned Porto and Sporting who aren't really 4th-6th place teams so their average will be around €60m. Same with the Belgians clubs mentioned (€38m), Danish (€19m), Austrian (€31m) etc.
UEFA don't give data on other leagues but Dinamo Zagreb wages are €25m according to wiki, the Serbian clubs are regularly in Europe and I'm sure I've read that some Cypriot clubs have bizarrely high wages.

 

Edited August 19, 2020 by charger29

[Mordecai]

It seems a strange hill to die on. There's only a handful of those teams who couldn't outspend Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts, not the other way around.

[Ludo*1]

6 hours ago, charger29 said:

According to UEFA the average wage bill for the 4th-6th placed teams in these leagues are €7m (NOR), €12m (POR), €13m (AUT), €14m (DEN), €14 (SUI), and €20m (BEL).
Edit: Had another look and noticed UEFA change how they calculate the figures depending on the country. For 4th-6th place it's more likely to be ~€5m (NOR), €6m (SCO), ~€9m (DEN), ~€9m (AUT), ~€10m (SUI), €12m (POR) and €20m (BEL).

You mentioned Porto and Sporting who aren't really 4th-6th place teams so their average will be around €60m. Same with the Belgians clubs mentioned (€38m), Danish (€19m), Austrian (€31m) etc.
UEFA don't give data on other leagues but Dinamo Zagreb wages are €25m according to wiki, the Serbian clubs are regularly in Europe and I'm sure I've read that some Cypriot clubs have bizarrely high wages.

 

Thankfully you've refuted that pish so I didn't have to make the effort to do so.

[GordonS]

12 hours ago, charger29 said:

According to UEFA the average wage bill for the 4th-6th placed teams in these leagues are €7m (NOR), €12m (POR), €13m (AUT), €14m (DEN), €14 (SUI), and €20m (BEL).
Edit: Had another look and noticed UEFA change how they calculate the figures depending on the country. For 4th-6th place it's more likely to be ~€5m (NOR), €6m (SCO), ~€9m (DEN), ~€9m (AUT), ~€10m (SUI), €12m (POR) and €20m (BEL).

You mentioned Porto and Sporting who aren't really 4th-6th place teams so their average will be around €60m. Same with the Belgians clubs mentioned (€38m), Danish (€19m), Austrian (€31m) etc.
UEFA don't give data on other leagues but Dinamo Zagreb wages are €25m according to wiki, the Serbian clubs are regularly in Europe and I'm sure I've read that some Cypriot clubs have bizarrely high wages.

 

I did say a handful of clubs could outspend them. But if clubs from leagues with similar or smaller TV deals, from cities smaller than Edinburgh and Aberdeen, with far, far less opportunity to sell sponsorship and hospitality, with less than half the money coming in through the gate and with no more merchandise sales can outspend them, where is this money coming from?