We are coming to the end of February. The race for the Scudetto, Champions League places, the other UEFA club competitions, and relegation are heating up. The question is though, which places award European football, and which competition do they enter?
European Spots Available to Italy via Domestic Football
At the time of writing, Italy is third in UEFA’s country rankings, which determines how many teams from each national association (NA for short) can qualify for Europe. The top 4 associations get to send (at least) 7 teams into Europe. The next two countries are awarded 6 places, with 7-15 earning 5 spots. After that the remaining NAs get 4 for the exception of the bottom 5 countries (3) and Liechtenstein (1).
These rankings fluctuate over time depending on how a country’s teams perform in Europe. The better the teams do, the higher their association’s ranking will be, and the more spots available. The 5 most recent seasons (including the current one) are considered when ranking UEFA’s members. For more information on coefficients and how to calculate them, you can find that here.
Back to Italy though, the Belpaese has 7 European places available. Four are for the Champions League, two for the Europa League, and one for the new Europa Conference League. The top 4 sides at the end of the Serie A season enter the Champions League, all starting at the group stage. The fifth-place team along with the Coppa Italia winner go to the Europa League, also kicking off at the group phase. The sixth-place team is awarded the Europa Conference League spot, commencing at the playoff round.
However, if the Coppa Italia winner finishes in the top 6, the Europa Conference League entrance will instead go to the seventh best team. Relatedly, there are also situations where a team or multiple teams finish in European places but are barred from partaking in the UEFA club competitions. Should an occurrence like this arise, the next highest ranked team(s) that would not previously qualify for continental football will earn a place instead.
Is There Another Way for Clubs to Qualify for the European Cups?
Most certainly. Teams have another way of making European football outside of their domestic league and/or cup. That is by winning a UEFA club competition.
Winning the Champions League or Europa League results in a position in the former’s competition at the group stage the following season. Ending up on top of the Europa Conference League will give a team a Europa League group stage place unless that team qualifies for the Champions League via their domestic competition. Under that scenario the team can choose which competition they want to enter.
An example of this is Roma. Jose Mourinho’s Giallorossi are currently eighth. They are still in the Europa Conference League, having won their group. Should they go all the way, they would enter the Europa League group stage next campaign. Inter and Juventus are still left in the Champions League, while Atalanta, Lazio and Napoli are in the Europa League. Should either of them win the tournament they are in, they would get to enjoy Champions League football in September. That would happen irrespective of league performance.
Can Winning a European Club Competition Affect How Teams Qualify Via Their Leagues?
It depends on the scenario. Going back to the previous point on Roma, they could win the Conference League and not qualify for Europe via the Serie A. In this scenario, Italy would have 8 teams in Europe instead of 7. The top 4 would still enter the Champions League, Roma along with the Coppa Italia winners and the fifth-place team would enter the Europa League, while the sixth best side would have Europa Conference League to look forward to.
A similar idea could occur if any of the other Italian teams left in Europe go on to win the competition, they are in. In fact, Italy could have as many as 10 teams in the UEFA club competitions in one season. This is highly unlikely but still possible.
There could also be scenarios where Italy could have less teams in either the Europa League or the Europa Conference League. For instance, if Juventus won the Champions League and finished in 5th and/or win the Coppa Italia, that would result in a fifth Champions League place for Italian football. However, there would only be one team in the Europa League. In this case, the Turin side’s Europa League place would not be passed down to the next best team.
The same idea can occur for the Europa Conference League position. If an Italian team wins a European club competition and finishes in sixth (or seventh), no Italian sides would participate in the Conference League before the knockout stages or even at all for a campaign.
In fact, such a scenario happened in Spain for this footballing year. Villarreal won the Europa League last May, but finished seventh in LaLiga. This meant that they entered the Champions League along with the top 4 La Liga teams, but no Spanish side ended up in the Conference League. They are the only country not to have seen a club in the new tournament throughout its maiden edition.
Fantastic! That Means Italy Could Have as Many as Six teams in the Champions League, Right?
Not quite. UEFA have a rule where a maximum of 5 teams can enter their most prestigious club competition in any one season.
So, if neither the Champions League or Europa League winner qualify for the former via the league, what happens then? Both will still enter the Champions League, but the fourth-place team would lose their CL place. They would enter the Europa League instead.
This has happened once before, back in 2012. Chelsea won the Champions League but finished 5th in the Premier League (which back then also awarded a Europa League place instead). Back then, the rule was only 4 teams could enter the Champions League from any one country per season. That meant that Tottenham, despite finishing fourth, ended up in the Europa League. This was also the last time the Champions League winner did not qualify via their league in the same season.
While we did not cover all possible scenarios here, this highlighted the most prominent ways Italian clubs can end up in Europe. We host a spreadsheet that covers all teams that qualify for Europe from all NAs. You can keep up to date with it here. It is updated on Mondays and some Thursdays.
With three months of football left across most of Europe, the battle for the European places will continue to go down to the wire.