If France saved in extremis its fifth place in the UEFA index last season, the first results recorded this summer do not suit French football.
Lille preserved the essentials, Thursday, on the lawn of Rijka. A week after their minimalist victory at Stade Pierre-Mauroy, the Mastiffs finally snatched the draw (1-1) in overtime. Enough to allow them to validate their ticket for the Europa League Conference.
France will therefore have six representatives this season on the European scene since in addition to Losc, PSG and RC Lens will compete in the Champions League, and Toulouse, Rennes and Olympique de Marseille in the Europa League. Six clubs that will have a mission: to save fifth place in Ligue 1 in the UEFA index. And the task will not be easy since if France had preserved in extremis this fifth place last season, which will allow it to potentially have four clubs next year in the Champions League, the Netherlands have passed it in this start of the season.
Because while Lille painfully won its ticket for the group stage of the Europa League Conference and Olympique de Marseille stalled as soon as it entered the running in the preliminary rounds of the Champions League, the Dutch clubs had more success. PSV Eindhoven have indeed validated their ticket for the Champions League by dominating Rangers 4-1 and Ajax for the Europa League despite losing 1-0 to Ludogorets. On the other hand, if AZ Alkmaar came out on penalties against Brann, FC Twente stalled against Fenerbahçe.
Also, the Netherlands scored 1.1 points against 0.08 for France and now have a lead of almost three points with 55.100 points against 52.331 for France. Nevertheless, the elimination of Twente is very good news for French football since the Netherlands will only have four representatives against six for France.
