With the league phases of the three UEFA competitions done, we analyse which nations are leading the race for an extra Champions League qualification spot.
This week brought the league phases of the 2025-26 UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League to a close, determining which teams will progress to the play-offs or straight to the last 16, and those whose participation in Europe is over for the season.
Each team obviously wants to do well for their own ambitions, but it’s also worth remembering that results can have more far-reaching consequences for rivals and competition at home.
Strong continental performance directly influences the maximum number of teams each country can send into the Champions League. So, while you may not be fond of your team’s closest rivals, it’s in your interest to see them do well in Europe if your team are in contention for European qualification.
But How Specifically Does it Work?
Well, two of the 36 spots in the league phase of the Champions League are awarded to the domestic top flights whose teams performed best in the previous season’s UCL, Europa League and Conference League.
This doesn’t mean a domestic league necessarily needs one of its representatives to win any of those competitions – though that obviously wouldn’t hurt.
Points (or coefficients, more on them later) are awarded for wins and progress through the various rounds, and they all add up to give each league a score. At the end of the season, each league’s total points are divided by the number of representatives they had in Europe to give an average score. The two leagues that have generated the highest average points earn an additional spot each in the following campaign’s Champions League.
For example, English clubs – Chelsea and Tottenham – won the Conference League and Europa League respectively last season, and Spurs beat another domestic rival in Manchester United to take that title. Furthermore, Arsenal also reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, so more than half of the Premier League’s representatives in Europe during 2024-25 got to at least the last four in their competitions.
English clubs earned more points on average than those from any other nation. The reward was an extra spot in the Champions League, which meant the team who finished fifth in the 2024-25 Premier League campaign – Newcastle – went straight into the league phase of the 2025-26 Champions League.
Of course, this didn’t just benefit Newcastle. It moved all the European qualification spots down a place, so sixth was good enough for a Europa League spot for Aston Villa.
Which Leagues Are Likely to Get an Extra Champions League Spot?
Five of the eight teams who’ve qualified automatically for the last 16 of the Champions League are Premier League sides; the only English club to miss out on a top-eight finish were Newcastle, though they remain alive in the competition as they go into the play-off round.
So, it shouldn’t be any surprise to learn the Premier League is the overwhelming favourite to earn an additional Champions League qualification spot for next season.
Also helping the Premier League’s cause is the fact Villa, Nottingham Forest (both Europa League) and Crystal Palace (Conference League) all made it through to at least the play-off round of their respective competitions.
Nine Premier League clubs qualified for European competition this season; nine Premier League clubs remain in European competition.
That this would translate to a very strong likelihood of an extra UCL place for the Premier League certainly isn’t rocket science. But we can also use the Opta supercomputer’s season projections for each of the three European competitions to predict which leagues will earn those two bonus Champions League places and quantify their respective chances.
Using these projections, we can give an expected points (xPts) total for each association in the UEFA coefficients ranking, which then tells us how likely it is that each nation will earn an additional spot in next season’s UCL.
In the supercomputer’s latest 10,000 simulations, the Premier League earned enough points for an extra Champions League place every single time.
The 100% figure noted in the graphic shouldn’t be misinterpreted as mathematical confirmation that the Premier League will get an additional place, only that in 100% of the simulations did this occur. However, at the very least this should give you an idea of how strong a position the Premier League is in.
After all, English clubs have already accumulated 21.0 points in the yearly coefficients ranking, which is more than those of other nations are predicted to earn over the full season.
Otherwise, as you’ll have seen from the table, it’s all rather up in the air for the second Champions League bonus ticket.
Currently, the German Bundesliga (36.4%) is deemed to have the best chance of earning that other extra place, though there’s not a huge amount to split it from the Portuguese Primeira Liga (30.7%) and Italy’s Serie A (24.5%).
All three of those leagues have seen only one representative knocked out of European competition to date this season, though what’s likely tipping the scale in favour of the Bundesliga is its teams’ quality (reflected in their Power Rankings) combined with it having one club from each UEFA competition already in the last 16.
Portugal is in a decent position as well because three of its four remaining clubs have also avoided the dreaded play-off round.
How Does This Impact Each Nation’s Standing in the UEFA Coefficients?
A slightly less engrossing – but still important – aspect of all of this is how performances affect each nation’s more general standing in the UEFA club coefficient rankings.
According to UEFA, the coefficient rankings “take into account the results of all clubs from each association and are used to determine the number of entries an association is granted for forthcoming seasons.”
Coefficients – points, essentially – form the rankings and also influence seeding in competition draws. The rankings take into account coefficient scores from the past five seasons.
Given they cover such a long period, we don’t tend to see particularly dramatic changes from year to year towards the top of these rankings. For instance, England has been top of UEFA’s coefficients rankings since 2020-21, when it overtook Spain, which had been top between 2012-13 and 2019-20.
So, as you can see, when we run the Opta supercomputer’s simulations for the rest of the season, there’s not a massive amount of change predicted in the top eight.
The expectation is, based on the latest sims, that Portugal will move up a place above the Netherlands. Essentially, AZ would need to reach the final of the Conference League and all four Portuguese clubs would need to lose every single one of their remaining games in Europe this season for the Netherlands to keep its place.
There is also some uncertainty around third and fourth, but Spain is backed in 89.4% of the simulations to retain its place.
There does tend to be more jeopardy and movement lower down the coefficient rankings, as shown in the graphic below.
Needless to say, however, most of the interest here relates to bonus Champions League tickets – and English clubs look extremely likely to benefit for the second season in a row.
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Which Leagues Are on Track for Bonus Champions League Spots in 2026-27? Opta Analyst.
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