Scotland has topped the UEFA coefficient table gaining the most points out of all European countries.
Scottish clubs in Europe have so far racked up 4.500 coefficient points, and encouragingly, despite some disappointments, all teams in Scotland have contributed to the total - albeit some more than others.
For a win in European competitions during the playoffs for the top competitions in Europe each team playing for .250 national coefficient points for a win and 0.125 points for a draw in any fixture.
While Kilmarnock only contributed one win, and Celtic got knocked out of Champions League qualification, they still managed to rack up a number of points with their two wins over AIK.
Aberdeen also contributed with a few wins, while Rangers progressed from the first round to the group stage for the second year in a row.
While the number of points gained are based on games played - thus skewed for countries that have played a lot of qualifiers against those that haven't - it is still encouraging for Scottish football and for future qualification campaigns. Especially when Scotland have outscored teams around them on the coefficient ladder such as Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Serbia, who all had a similar number of teams in the qualification stages.
National coefficients are based on the results of each association's clubs in the five previous UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League seasons, and with Celtic and Rangers both in the Europa League, the points may continue to rack up.
READ MORE: Europa league draw: Who can Celtic and Rangers face?
Ahead of this current season, Scotland sat in 20th position with the nations being in the top 10 getting an automatic place in the Champions League group stages.
Two teams will get into Champions League qualification stages if Scotland manages to rise to 15th place. Currently, the nation would finish the season in 16th.
By moving up to at least 17th place, Scottish Champions League qualifiers would avoid the first qualifying round.
Let's try this again - Whew!!!! Long day over here at the coefficient calculating factory. Here's what the coefficient looks like heading into groupsScotland ends qualifying ranked #1 in this year's coefficient, pretty impressive considering they didn't have a UCL qualifier. pic.twitter.com/HgubfEkALt
— UEFA Calculator (@UEFACalculator) August 29, 2019
Scottish football fans will be hoping the country can get to that elusive 15th place and secure two teams into Champions League qualifying, however, in order to do so, Celtic and Rangers will need to continue to put up points so that the coefficient can climb above nations such as Serbia, Croatia, Switzerland and Greece and Cyprus.
Over the last five seasons, Scotland’s coefficient has seen the nation drop through the coefficient rankings with the country winning 3.000 points in season 15/16, 4.375 in 16/17, 4.000 in 17/18 and 6.750 in 18/19 giving us a total coefficient of 20.750. For qualifying next year, the 15/16 is replaced with the current season meaning we already have a 1.500 gain.
A breakdown of coefficient points won so far as of 30
Rangers 1.750
Celtic 1.625
Aberdeen 0.875
Kilmarnock 0.250
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article