Portugal is back in the race for the extra place in the Champions League awarded annually by UEFA to the two countries whose clubs perform better in their respective European competitions, due to a week in which its five representatives achieved a practically ‘immaculate’ set of results.
It all started, precisely, in the Champions League league stage, with the victories of Sporting and FC Porto, respectively, over Shakhtar Donetsk (by 0-1) and Napoli (by 4-1), and continued in the Europa League, where Benfica got the better of Lech Poznan, by 3-1, and Torreense over Ararat-Armenia, by 3-2.
The only ‘snag’ came in the Europa Conference League, where Sporting de Braga proved incapable of going beyond a goalless draw with Aarhus. Nothing that, however, prevented Portugal from being the country that scored the most points in this round (1,800), ahead of Belgium (1,600), France (1,285) and England 1,222.
Such an achievement was worth a ‘jump’ directly from fourth to second place in this table, now, with 8,900 points, a record only surpassed by England’s 9,166 points, which, however, has nine clubs in the competition (Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Manchester United, Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, Sunderland and Brighton).
Next are Belgium, with 8,400 points and five teams (Club Brugge, Union St. Gilloise, Anderlecht, Gent and Sint-Truiden), Germany, with 8,265 points and seven teams (Bayern Munich, Stuttgart, Borussia Dortmund, Leipzig, Bayer Leverkusen, Hoffenheim and Fribourg), and Turkey, with 7,900 points and four teams (Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, Besiktas and Trabzonspor).
This year, remember, the I League includes three places for what is the biggest club competition in European football (two directly for the league phase and one for the third qualifying round). Fourth place gives access to the Europa League, and fifth to the Europa Conference League (in both cases to the second qualifying round). Accounts that, however (and as happened last season), will always be influenced by the winner of the Portuguese Cup.
Where did Portugal’s points in the UEFA rankings come from?
Portugal began to accumulate points for the UEFA ranking very early on, due to the participation of Benfica and Sporting de Braga right from the second qualifying round, respectively, of the Europa League and the Europa Conference League. The former have eight wins, one draw and one defeat after ten games, and the latter have five wins, three draws and one defeat in the nine matches played.
Sporting came out on top in three of the four matches played so far in the Champions League, and Torreense in two, in their (historic) debut in the Europa League. Much less happy has been FC Porto, who were defeated in the first three rounds of the million-dollar competition, having just started to contribute to these accounts, now, with an important result, against Napoli, which keeps them ‘alive’ in the fight to qualify for the next phase of the million-dollar competition.
