ELGS 5th round, Nov. 30.

[bugylibicska]

AEK Athens v Brighton 3.80 3.90 1.80
Atalanta v Sporting Lisbon 2.00 3.70 3.30
Backa Topola v West Ham 8.50 5.50 1.28
Freiburg v Olympiacos 1.85 3.75 3.70
Maccabi Haifa v Rennes 3.70 3.75 1.8
Sparta Prague v Real Betis 2.40 3.60 2.60
Sturm Graz v Rakow 1.75 3.60 4.33
Hacken v Bayer Leverkusen 7.00 5.50 1.35
Liverpool v LASK Linz 1.10 9.00 21.00
Marseille v Ajax 1.67 4.00 4.40
Molde v Qarabag 1.91 3.75 3.60
Rangers v Aris Limassol 1.33 5.00 8.00
Servette v Roma 3.80 3.90 1.80
Sheriff Tiraspol v Slavia Prague 4.50 3.80 1.70
Toulouse v Union St Gilloise 2.25 3.60 2.87
Villarreal v Panathinaikos 1.61 4.00 4.80

Outright:

Liverpool 3.75
Bayer Leverkusen 10.00
Roma 13.00
Brighton 15.00
Atalanta 19.00
Real Betis, Sporting Lisbon, Villarreal, West Ham 23.00
Marseille 26.00
Freiburg, Rennes 34.00
Rangers 41.00
Slavia Prague, Ajax 67.00
Toulouse 101.00
Union St Gilloise, AEK Athens, Qarabag 151.00
Panathinaikos, Olympiacos, Sparta Prague 201.00
Sturm Graz 251.00
Molde, Aris Limassol 401.00
Maccabi Haifa 751.00
Servette, LASK Linz 1001.00

[matt]

Out of 12 teams from the top five leagues, every single one is currently in a top two spot. Only 4 intruders: Rangers, Slavia Praha, Qarabag and Sporting.
We are up to a high quality knock-out stages.

[Clockingbell]

Out of 12 teams from the top five leagues, every single one is currently in a top two spot. Only 4 intruders: Rangers, Slavia Praha, Qarabag and Sporting.
We are up to a high quality knock-out stages.

You make it sound like it can only be high quality if the teams are from top 5 leagues. I think a little diversity would be better

[matt]

Out of 12 teams from the top five leagues, every single one is currently in a top two spot. Only 4 intruders: Rangers, Slavia Praha, Qarabag and Sporting.
We are up to a high quality knock-out stages.

You make it sound like it can only be high quality if the teams are from top 5 leagues. I think a little diversity would be better

The point is that objectively speaking for teams outside the top 5 leagues it is becoming more and more hard to compete even with mid-table teams or teams from positions 6-10 of the main leagues. That was my thoughts while writing the previous post.
15 years ago Zenit and Shakhtar won this cup, nowadays it would be much more difficult. Rangers two seasons ago almost made a miracle, but they are an exception to the rule.

[TommyChat]

Out of 12 teams from the top five leagues, every single one is currently in a top two spot. Only 4 intruders: Rangers, Slavia Praha, Qarabag and Sporting.
We are up to a high quality knock-out stages.

You make it sound like it can only be high quality if the teams are from top 5 leagues. I think a little diversity would be better

The point is that objectively speaking for teams outside the top 5 leagues it is becoming more and more hard to compete even with mid-table teams or teams from positions 6-10 of the main leagues. That was my thoughts while writing the previous post.
15 years ago Zenit and Shakhtar won this cup, nowadays it would be much more difficult. Rangers two seasons ago almost made a miracle, but they are an exception to the rule.

Well, French clubs have even more years to win any cup. End especially Toulouse who is close to relegation in France isn't exactly high quality.

[Dragonite]

You make it sound like it can only be high quality if the teams are from top 5 leagues. I think a little diversity would be better

The point is that objectively speaking for teams outside the top 5 leagues it is becoming more and more hard to compete even with mid-table teams or teams from positions 6-10 of the main leagues. That was my thoughts while writing the previous post.
15 years ago Zenit and Shakhtar won this cup, nowadays it would be much more difficult. Rangers two seasons ago almost made a miracle, but they are an exception to the rule.

Well, French clubs have even more years to win any cup. End especially Toulouse who is close to relegation in France isn't exactly high quality.

It's a provocative xenophobic post, calling teams from everywhere else except 5 countries "intruders" and "low quality".

In the last 24 editions of UEFA Cup/EL, there are 7 winners from Turkey or Netherlands or Portugal or Russia or Ukraine (Galatasaray, Feyenoord, Porto x2, CSKA Moskva, Zenit and Shakhtar).

And there are 5 winners from England or Germany or France or Italy (Liverpool, Chelsea x2, Manchester United and Frankfurt).

So if you want to talk about "low quality", perhaps you should look at English or German or French or Italian participants, that in the last 24 editions only won this five times.

Actually this "English or German or French or Italian" isn't even a group.

There is Spanish teams that won half of these 24 editions, they're as successful as everyone else combined.

Then there is English teams that also won this 4 times.

And then there's Italian and French parasites that won this ZERO TIMES but like to tell stories about how they're "equal" to Spanish and English teams and better than anyone else.

[matt]

You make it sound like it can only be high quality if the teams are from top 5 leagues. I think a little diversity would be better

The point is that objectively speaking for teams outside the top 5 leagues it is becoming more and more hard to compete even with mid-table teams or teams from positions 6-10 of the main leagues. That was my thoughts while writing the previous post.
15 years ago Zenit and Shakhtar won this cup, nowadays it would be much more difficult. Rangers two seasons ago almost made a miracle, but they are an exception to the rule.

Well, French clubs have even more years to win any cup. End especially Toulouse who is close to relegation in France isn't exactly high quality.

Among the 12 teams from the top five countries that currently play in the Europa League Toulouse are indeed the weakest.
The fact that they may qualify to the next round (like Nantes did last year) validate my point: teams from the five top countries are getting even stronger compared to the rest of Europe.
France's league is the worst of the best (the top five) but in my opinion part of it.

Do France deserve to being considered part of the "élite"? In my opinion yes, but this is debatable. For sure England, Spain, Germany and Italy are miles ahead of the rest of Europe and the gap is growing, i'm not saying this is a good thing (and UEFA does everything to widen the gap), but it's the reality that everyone can see (except for people that lives in a parallel reality).

[matt]

@Dragonite Are data xenophobic too?

Semifinals reached in the last 11 EL editions:

Spain 11
England 10
Italy 7
Germany 4 (all from the 2018-19, clear upwards trend here)
Ukraine 3 (2014-15, 2015-16 and 2019-20)
France 2 (2016-17 and 2017-18)
Portugal 2 (2012-13 and 2013-14)
Turkey 1 (2012-13)
Switzerland 1 (2012-13)
Austria 1 (2017-18)
The Netherlands 1 (2016-17)
Scotland 1 (2021-22)

Turkey and Switzerland are lucky to be in this list, because i considered the last 11 editions instead of the last 10.
Portugal is at risk to disappear from this list in a couple of years too. Almost ten years without a semifinalist.
In the last 5 editions only Ukraine and Scotland managed to reach a semifinal beyond the top four countries. Of course changes to the access list gave a helping hand to ENG, SPA, ITA and GER, further exacerbating the growing divide in European football that exist.
Now the question is: is this trend (domination of the top 4 also in the EL) more a consequence of a widening gap in quality, more due to access list changes or to the fact that a CL place is at stake for the winner, unlike before? All of the above might be the answer.


This list done for the CL would be much worse in terms of diversity, i don't need to bring it up.

[bjkman1903]

This list done for the CL would be much worse in terms of diversity, i don't need to bring it up.

If UEFA keep on giving more direct access and more money to top 5 leagues, it's obviously only natural that teams from these leagues go further in the competition.

19 teams out of 32 in CL are from England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France this season.
It could have been 20 if the only team that played in the qualifiers (Marseille) didn't fail.

[Dragonite]

@Dragonite Are data xenophobic too?

Semifinals reached in the last 11 EL editions:

Spain 11
England 10
Italy 7
Germany 4 (all from the 2018-19, clear upwards trend here)
Ukraine 3 (2014-15, 2015-16 and 2019-20)
France 2 (2016-17 and 2017-18)
Portugal 2 (2012-13 and 2013-14)
Turkey 1 (2012-13)
Switzerland 1 (2012-13)
Austria 1 (2017-18)
The Netherlands 1 (2016-17)
Scotland 1 (2021-22)

Turkey and Switzerland are lucky to be in this list, because i considered the last 11 editions instead of the last 10.
Portugal is at risk to disappear from this list in a couple of years too. Almost ten years without a semifinalist.
In the last 5 editions only Ukraine and Scotland managed to reach a semifinal beyond the top four countries. Of course changes to the access list gave a helping hand to ENG, SPA, ITA and GER, further exacerbating the growing divide in European football that exist.
Now the question is: is this trend (domination of the top 4 also in the EL) more a consequence of a widening gap in quality, more due to access list changes or to the fact that a CL place is at stake for the winner, unlike before? All of the above might be the answer.


This list done for the CL would be much worse in terms of diversity, i don't need to bring it up.

You are provocative and xenophobic when you call teams like Rangers, Slavia Praha and Sporting "low quality intruders" just because they're not from the so-called "top top whatevers".

Rangers reached the EL KO stages thrice over the last four seasons, if they do it again this season it's normal, they're not a "low quality intruder".
Sporting reached the EL KO stages four times over the last six seasons (and the CL KO stages once too), if they do it again this season it's normal, they're not a "low quality intruder".
Slavia Praha reached the EL KO stages twice over the last five seasons (and the Conference League KO stages once too eliminating "high quality" Union Berlin), if they do it again this season it's normal, they're not a "low quality intruder".

That's exactly what the group stages are for, to filter which teams are worthy of advancing and which teams aren't.

"High quality" is guaranteed regardless of the countries where the teams come from.

[Dragonite]

@matt ,

PPG in EL from 2009/2010 to 2022/2023 by Country

Code: Select all

Country		#Teams	Matches	Points	PPG
England		17	382	686	1.80
Spain		13	460	825	1.80
Germany		18	366	610	1.67
Italy		14	402	653	1.62
Russia		10	252	381	1.51
Portugal	12	310	459	1.48
Netherlands	9	279	402	1.44	
Turkey		9	212	295	1.39
Ukraine		9	239	326	1.36
France		12	291	396	1.36
Belgium		9	274	370	1.35
Czech Republic	6	174	230	1.32
Austria		6	212	273	1.29
Scotland	2	101	130	1.29
Switzerland	8	169	216	1.28
Croatia		3	84	101	1.20
Serbia		2	68	77	1.13
Poland		3	64	72	1.13
Denmark		6	111	124	1.12
Greece		6	186	200	1.08
Moldova		1	32	34	1.06
Belarus		2	42	44	1.05
Romania		9	118	118	1.00
Israel		5	92	91	0.99
Hungary		3	38	36	0.95
Kazakhstan	2	32	29	0.91
Sweden		5	54	47	0.87
Bulgaria	3	82	70	0.85
Norway		5	78	65	0.83
Cyprus		5	90	73	0.81
Albania		1	12	8	0.67
Azerbaijan	3	60	39	0.65
Slovenia	1	20	13	0.65
Finland		1	12	7	0.58
Slovakia	2	24	12	0.50
Latvia		1	6	3	0.50
Luxembourg	1	12	5	0.42
Ireland		2	18	4	0.22
Macedonia	1	6	1	0.17

This is a proper ranking, that counts every match ever played, and since different countries have different number of teams and played different numbers of matches the number that matters is points per game

It tells a much different story from your "semifinals or nothing and let's remove the first two seasons ranking".

[matt]

Out of 12 teams from the top five leagues, every single one is currently in a top two spot. Only 4 intruders: Rangers, Slavia Praha, Qarabag and Sporting.
We are up to a high quality knock-out stages.

@Dragonite

Did i wrote that Rangers, Slavia, Qarabag and Sporting are bad teams? No, i wrote that every single team that belongs to the top five leagues are currently in a position to advance, then i added "We are up to a high quality knock-out stages" because those 12 teams belongs to the best European leagues. My and your statistics (thank you for helping me) prove that teams from Spain, England, Germany and Italy obtain better results than teams from the rest of Europe in this cup, so more teams from those countries = higher quality of football expected. It's so simple that i don't know why i'm losing all this time to explain it.

[Lorric]

And looking at the groups, it doesn't look like any of them will lose their spots. Only one has a team above them which isn't from a top 5 league, Slavia, over Roma.

[matt]

And looking at the groups, it doesn't look like any of them will lose their spots. Only one has a team above them which isn't from a top 5 league, Slavia, over Roma.

Toulouse and Brighton are the ones in danger if they lose in matchday 5. Union Saint-Gilloise can be dangerous, an away game in Greece too.
To a lesser extent Freiburg and Betis too are not yet safe.

[FrancoisD]

@matt ,

PPG in EL from 2009/2010 to 2022/2023 by Country
[...]
This is a proper ranking, that counts every match ever played, and since different countries have different number of teams and played different numbers of matches the number that matters is points per game

It tells a much different story from your "semifinals or nothing and let's remove the first two seasons ranking".

It doesn't count matches played in the previous EL format (with direct elimination in R1, then a 5 team GS, or with only direct elimination before that). It over emphasize the 48 team format years compared to the now 32 teams format. Every stat is a lie

However, I think matt's post misses the point, by making the Top5/rest difference, instead of testing a more interesting difference: direct qualification / risk of elimination. There are two ways to see this:
- directly qualified clubs being more successful in average proves that they had their place in GS, validating the qualification scheme
- UEFA giving more direct qualification spots to Top countries (including 6th) allows the clubs to recruit for both GS and home championship/cup, with a better pre-season preparation, while clubs not guaranteed to play group stage matches tend to only recruit for their national leagues and cups, or only reinforce later once qualified.