The French clubs involved in the European Cups shone this week. The tone was set on Tuesday by Olympique de Marseille, stunning winner of Newcastle (2-1) and completely relaunched in the race to qualify for the play-offs. On Wednesday, if Monaco had to settle for a draw on the Pafos pitch (2-2), PSG held its place against Tottenham (5-3), consolidating its place among the leading teams.
Thursday, apart from OGC Nice, the representatives in the Europa League were not left out. While the Aiglons scored a 17e match in a row without a victory in the European Cups on the pitch of FC Porto (3-0), Lille corrected Dinamo Zagreb (4-0) and Olympique Lyonnais did the same on the pitch of Maccabi Tel Aviv, at the same time seizing first place in the ranking. And in the Europa Conference League, Strasbourg completed the table by offering itself a prestigious victory against Crystal Palace (2-1).
This great week is reflected in the UEFA index. France has in fact consolidated its fifth place with now 73.391 points, almost nine points ahead of the Netherlands (64.700) and more than eleven over Portugal (62.066).
A fifth club qualified for the Champions League?
After a good start to the season, Belgium marks time and follows with 57,750. Enough to be reassured for next summer when the points from the 2021-22 season will no longer be taken into account. France currently has 54.975 points compared to 51.150 for Belgium.
The fourth place occupied by Germany, on the other hand, still appears inaccessible since France displays 7,583 points of expenditure over its neighbor.
On the other hand, France can still hope to finish among the two best nations of the season, which would allow it to have a fifth team qualified for the Champions League. France is certainly only eighth in the ranking, being notably ahead of Cyprus and Poland, but it is only 1.59 points behind Germany and a good winter could allow it to catch up.
