Lech and Djurgårdens IF in top 3

When competing in European competitions, clubs can improve their own, as well as the national, ranking coefficient. In the two cases, points are added up using a different method, however, one thing remains unchanged – the number of points accumulated will decide whether a team is seeded or unseeded in various stages of the competition. Another fact worth remembering – only the achievements from the past 5 years are included in the rankings, whereas earlier performances aren’t considered.

In the 2022/2023 season, Lech has already accumulated 16 points for the national ranking which is the best achievement in the history of Polish clubs. The win against FK Bodø/Glimt (1:0) enabled Lech to surpass Legia Warsaw who, back in 2014/15, collected a total of 14,5 points. Hence, the positive impact of Lech’s performances on the national scale is self-evident. The higher Poland is in the ranking, the more teams can play in the qualifiers for European competition. Moreover, as Poland progresses in the ranking, the teams that do get to compete in the European arena get to start qualifiers at a later stage. However, those 16 points accumulated by Lech will not be added to Poland’s account. Instead, a different methodology is used - that number is divided by the number of clubs from the country which played in European competition in that season (in the case of Poland, it’s 4 teams). Therefore, Poland’s account will increase by 4 points.

This number can serve as a reference point as we analyse other teams’ achievements. A few clubs have collected more points than Lech, among them SL Benfica (25 pts), Fenerbahce (19 pts), and Djurgårdens IF (18 pts), however, once the individual points are divided by the number of teams from a specific country, the situation changes. The Swedish side, despite having fewer points than the Portuguese and the Turkish clubs, is ranked first, whereas Lech end up higher in the table than teams such as AZ Alkmaar and Club Brugge which have 1 point more (17 pts).

On Thursday evening, two top 3 teams – Lech (who have 4 points) and Djurgårdens IF (with 4,5 points) - will face each other at Bułgarska Street in Poznań. Below is an overview of the teams from leagues other than the top 5 – those clubs play regularly in the European arena and, as a result, continuously work on improving their country’s rank. For example, English sides have already accumulated 17 points for their country, and they are still playing which means the final number will be even higher.

When it comes to the top 5 European leagues, Bayern Munich is performing the best. They have collected 23 points and when we divide the number by 7 (this is how many German clubs compete in the European arena), the final result is 3,28. Karabach Agdam serves as another interesting example. Lech was eliminated by the Azerbaijan side in the Champions League qualifications. Karabach went on to accumulate 12,5 points, which in the end meant that Azerbaijan would get additional 3,125 points in the ranking. This only shows the true scope of Lech’s achievement this season which, undoubtedly, deserves recognition.

TOP 10 CLUBS AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE 2022/2023 NATIONAL RANKING