French football is progressing slowly in the UEFA index ranking, given the poor performances recorded during this fifth week of the Champions League and Europa League.
It's not a good European week for French clubs. With the defeats of Paris Saint-Germain, Stade Brestois, AS Monaco and OGC Nice, respectively against Bayern Munich, FC Barcelona, Benfica and Rangers FC, the UEFA index is slipping. France, 5th in this ranking, was still able to glean +0.571 (63.807) on this fifth day of European Cups, thanks to the victories of Losc and Olympique Lyonnais, against Bologna and Qarabag.
But it's not enough to prevent the Netherlands, in 6th place, from regaining some ground (59.233+0.667) thanks to PSV's 3-2 victory against Shakhtar, Feyenoord's 3-3 against Manchester City and AZ Alkmaar's 1-1 draw against Galatasaray.
For France, 5th place in the UEFA coefficient (calculated for the current season and the four previous ones) represents a major challenge. It grants three direct places for the championship phase of the Champions League, as well as a fourth place in the preliminary round. 6th place only grants two direct tickets.
Portugal well on track for the extra place
Up front, the top 4 shows a good pace: +1.875 for England, +1.375 for Italy, +1.143 for Spain, +1.000 for Germany.
In 7th place, Portugal (56.491) is still far from France but continues to reduce the gap by +1.275. Above all, if it were to remain like this, Portuguese football would obtain an additional place in the Champions League thanks to the mechanism which rewards the two best countries of the current season. For this parallel ranking, France is well behind: 8,642 while England is at 11,303 and Portugal at 10,475.
