This is the point in football season when bad news is confirmed.
Usually it’s been a relegation or mathematical failure to qualify for the playoffs, or perhaps a favorite player not on the club’s roster that has been retained.
This season has seen an exciting new entrant onto the scene: the confident and then agonizing wait to see if the Premier League would finish fifth in the 2024-25 Champions League. This week brought confirmation of what we’ve suspected for a while: no, it wouldn’t.
For reasons we’ve explained before (see below), next season’s new-look Champions League has four additional places, two of which are awarded based on each division’s seasonal coefficient, which is again determined by how the clubs perform in the competition. three European club competitions in 2023-24.
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Understandably, England’s top flight fans were confident that their league would be one of the competitions to benefit from. This is the Premier League, after all.
Last season Manchester City won the Champions League, West Ham United won the Europa League and all four of the Champions League’s Premier League representatives made it past Christmas and into the knockout stages. The majority of UEFA’s calculations are based on a five-year rolling coefficient, of which the Premier League is still miles on top…
But it feels as if England’s dominance of the long-term factor has only meant that the Premier League missed out on a super-low position for much of 2023-2024. In the same way that a league title is a better indicator of a team’s strength than a cup win, a five-year standings is surely a better judge of the strength of a competition than a single-season shootout – the latter of which is precisely what these additional Champions League places are based on.
Ironically, the desire by UEFA – or rather UEFA’s major clubs – to make the continent’s flagship competition less haphazard and less predictable in 2024-25 has turned 2023-24 into a strangely compelling short-term battle between its top three divisions. And at least this year, the Premier League has been beaten by Serie A and the Bundesliga.
Among Opta’s range of supercomputers is one that has predicted who would gain more places this season, based on team and league strength and a simulation of the remainder of the various European campaigns. And it’s notable that it wasn’t until late February that the forecasting model had either of the challengers more likely to get a fifth Champions League spot. Serie A was the first competition to catch up to the Premier League, in late February, at which point England’s top flight was still considered secure.
Historians of the future may reflect on the European quarter-final draw in mid-March as the turning point. Not only were Arsenal paired with Bayern Munich, but West Ham were drawn against Bayer Leverkusen’s infallible Xabi Alonso, while Liverpool had to face Serie A side Atalanta. For years they would simply have been labeled an ‘interesting tie’, but in the context. 2023-24, they were the coefficient of superclasicos.
A sad April with Manchester City, Arsenal, West Ham and Liverpool all leaving Europe in the same week but sealing the deal. On April 19, the mighty Premier League had just a one per cent chance of finishing as one of UEFA’s top two competitions this season. This week, a combination of Bayern, Dortmund and Aston Villa ensured it was over.
So who is to blame? Where can the fifth-placed team – Tottenham, most likely – point their fingers when they receive the mildly enticing Europa League spot for 2024-25 instead of a glamorous ticket to the Champions League?
Maybe… everyone?
Perhaps Newcastle and Manchester United should have avoided finishing bottom of their respective groups (the first time two Premier League sides have done so in the same season) this autumn. Even third place would have given them access to European football in the spring – as it was, they barely contributed to England’s overall points tally this season. Although Eddie Howe will surely point to the two qualifiers from Newcastle’s group – Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund – competing in one of the semi-finals.
Perhaps Brighton should have done better under the historic lights of the Stadio Olimpico at the start of March, although it was an understandably daunting task in the club’s first European adventure.
Perhaps Liverpool should have tried some sort of defense in their home game against Atalanta last month: that 3-0 loss at Anfield condemned the Europa League favorites to an early exit.
Perhaps Arsenal could have been a bit calmer when they were on top and in the lead against Bayern at the Emirates.
Perhaps Tottenham shouldn’t have sold Harry Kane to Bayern – no player has scored more than the Englishman’s eight Champions League goals this season and he still has a fair chance of leading his new employers to a possible All-German final at Wembley next season. months.
Maybe Jude Bellingham shouldn’t have joined Real Madrid and helped them knock out holders Manchester City in the quarter-finals.
Perhaps West Ham could have done what no other team has done this season and found a way to beat Leverkusen – almost certainly the best Bundesliga team in one of the league’s strongest ever seasons.
In reality, it was a death by a thousand cuts for the Premier League. An awesome season that came just when it didn’t need one. The 2023-24 campaign will be just the second season in the last nine not to face at least one Premier League side in a European final – and that’s assuming Aston Villa don’t overturn their two-goal loss to Olympiacos next week.
And Villa will likely be the side to benefit this season on the continent, even if they go out of the Conference League in the semi-finals. Tottenham’s defeat against Chelsea on Thursday night makes Unai Emery’s side overwhelming favorites to finish fourth. Five Champions League places were always going to give new teams qualification and Villa, who have not played in Europe’s top flight since 1982-83, are now likely to get the chance to do so next season.
Maybe four Champions League places were enough after all.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
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