France likes to cultivate paradoxes in the UEFA index ranking. And the overall ranking of clubs for the current season perfectly illustrates this. LOSC is on the podium behind Liverpool and FC Barcelona and closely followed by the irresistible Stade Brestois 5th. Conversely, PSG is only 29th and above all, the two French dunces, Nice and Lens, are literally weighing down the index ranking this season and are respectively only 90th and 104th.
Nice is having one of the worst European campaigns in its history and continues to disappoint with four defeats in six games and still not the slightest victory. In Belgium against Union Saint Gilloise, Franck Haise’s team lost again at the last minute (2-1) and was almost eliminated with only two points in a competition where the Nice team had plenty to compete with. with the top 24. As for Lens, they were prematurely eliminated from the Europa Conference League and have not contributed any points for a long time.
Belgium passes France…
The only problem is that it counts in France’s points distribution each day. And with 7 teams, each victory brings less to France than to Belgium which has only 5 qualified. This largely explains why our neighbor across Quiévrain has overtaken France in the rankings for the current season. Fortunately, the other French clubs shone this week.
PSG finally won in the Champions League against the very weak Salzburg team (0-3) while a revamped LOSC team won against Sturm Graz (3-2) and Brest again achieved a great feat by dominating the reigning Dutch champions, PSV Eindhoven 1-0. A result all the more interesting as the Dutch are our direct competitors for fifth place in the five-year index, which offers 7 qualifiers including 4 in the Champions League.
Finally, special mention to OL who won in style against one of the big players in this Europa League, Eintracht Frankfurt (3-2). Over five years, France can therefore see this coming, especially since Brest, Lille (in C1) and OL (in the Europa League) are already guaranteed to see Europe in 2025. For Monaco, it is almost a given ( at 98% according to Opta) while at PSG, there is still hope despite a complicated situation…
Ranking of nations according to the UEFA coefficient for the 2024/25 season (in parentheses, the number of clubs remaining in competition and the number of clubs qualified this season for European competitions) as of 13/12/2024:
-1. England 13,642 (7/7)
-2. Italy 12,109 (8/8)
-3. Portugal 11,775 points (5/5)
-4. Spain 11,428 points (7/7)
-5. Belgium 11,150 points (5/5)
-6. Germany 10,421 (8/8)
-7. France 9.928 points (6/7)
-8. Rep. Czech 8,700 points (4/5)
-9. Sweden 8.156 points (3/4)
-10. Netherlands 8,000 (5/6)
Ranking of nations by UEFA coefficient over the last five seasons (between 2020 and 2025):
-1. England 99.374 points
-2. Italy 87.465 points
-3. Spain 81,989 points
-4. Germany 78.331 points
-5. France 65,093 points
-6. Netherlands 59,900 points
-7. Portugal 57,791 points
-8. Belgium 52,350 points
-9. Rep. Czech 42,250 points
-10. Türkiye 40,750 points
