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Top 10 current table revealed
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As European football enters it's knockout stages, the continental game really begins to heat up. Every match matters. But it's not just team's hopes in this season's Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League themselves that they are fighting for. UEFA offers two European Performance Spots (EPS) for the two nations which perform best in this season's competitions. That means that fifth place in two of the domestic tables could go from being a Europa League place to a ticket into the Champions League next term - Newcastle benefited this way in the Premier League last season.
How do European Performance Spots work?
To work out who are the most successful nations, UEFA takes into consideration the overall performance of all clubs in either the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League. It creates an average by taking the total coefficient score and dividing it by the number of clubs each league has in European competition. So for example if the Premier League has a total score of 185. Divide that by the nine clubs in Europe and you get an average of 20.56. The top two leagues in the table then get an extra place in the Champions League.
Each win - regardless of the competition - is worth two coefficient points. A draw is worth one. The key differential is in bonus points, which are awarded based on clubs' finishing positions - these are much higher in the Champions League. For example, the teams that finish 25th-36th in the Champions League got six bonus points despite being eliminated. Yet, the team who finished top of the Conference League table received just four points. Bonus points for progressing through the knockout rounds are also weighted. In the Champions League it is 1.5, Europa League 1, and Conference League 0.5. So who is currently leading the race?
The race for extra Champions League places
To no great surprise, the Premier League leads the way with a current coefficient average score of 22.40. All nine English teams currently remain in their respective European competition. In second place comes the Bundesliga, with a score of 17.86 and with five of the seven German teams that began the season playing European football, still competing. Narrowly behind in third is LaLiga with a score of 17.78 and six of the eight Spanish teams still in Europe. The Serie A is fourth with 17.36 and four of the seven Italian teams remaining in their respective tournaments.
Portugal complete the top five with a score of 16.60 and three of the five teams remaining in Europe. Surprisingly, Poland are actually sixth with a coefficient average of 15.25 despite just two of their four teams remaining in Europe. France are all the way down in seventh with a score of 14.96, with four Ligue 1 teams still in Europe. Greece (12.90), Cyprus (11.91) and Denmark (11.75) complete the current top 10. However, every matchday we will see this table change.
