It's the points, stupid! Yes this is a cheesy play on the legendary words of James Carville, who launched the snappy line 'It's the economy, stupid!' in the 1992 the American elections were all about the economy. Clinton won that election by the way. please log in to view this image Now in football, points matter, winning a game gets you three points; drawing one, and losing none. But in European football, there is another system that involves points: The European Coefficients. This system ranks the countries in order of performance in the Europa League and Champions League. In England this system is not much of an issue. The Premier League is almost always in the top 2 of the rankings. But for a country such as The Netherlands and the Eredivisie, this ranking system plays a crucial part in the league. Now this system works similar to the championship points. Win a match in group stage of the Champions league and you get around 400 points, a draw is 200, a loss... In the Europa League its 300 and 150 and this goes up the further you advance in the tournament. At the end of the season all the countries club's point gains are tallied, and added to the total of the previous four seasons. And voilà , ranking appears. I hear you thinking, BIG DEAL! Well, it is actually. This ranking also dictates who gets the seeding spots for the Champions and Europa League. The top 3 in the ranking get four spots in the CL and 3 in the EL. Number four five and six get three CL and three EL spots. The number seven to nine get 2 CL spots and 4 EL spots and so on. The higher you get on the ranking the higher the clubs are seeded in the qualification rounds as well. please log in to view this image Now for The Netherlands, from the late nineties till around 2002, the Eredivisie always seeded three teams to the Champions League. But since 2003 the league has been in decline, scoring lesser points every year till the Dutch clubs hit a low of 5200 points in 2008/09. Which cause the country to drop to the 10th spot in the rankings in 2010, but since 2009 the Eredivisie was undergoing drastic change, clubs had to restructure and rely on youth players. The whole turnaround had a positive effect on the way the Dutch clubs played in Europe. Promptly The Netherlands went from 5.200 points in 2008/09 to 9.416 in the 2009/10 season. And this trend continued in the two seasons that followed. Last season however, was an all-out failure for the Dutch clubs. I'm not even going to elaborate on that, look for yourself: please log in to view this image Now last week, FC Utrecht got knocked out of the second round in the Europa League, against Luxembourg's semi pro's Differdange. Two games played, one loss and one draw. In other words, total failure. All football fans and analysts had the same thought: "here we go again". Now this week PSV are seeded in the Champions League third qualification round against Belgian team Zulte Waregem, they play on Tuesday night. Vitesse Arnhem(now without Bony and Van Ginkel) play Romanian side Petrolul Ploiesti in the third round of the EL on Thursday. With five teams left, the Eredivisie teams can't afford to lose another team on the way to the group stages of both competitions. Last year was diabolical and with this years exodus of talents this summer could be an full blown catastrophe for Dutch football if they can't get score more than 9.000. To stay ahead of the Russians, Turkish, Belgian and Ukrainian teams, to maintain the millions of income that the clubs gain from European football. Because going down to the 10th spot on the ranking would not only be a disgrace for a league that was once world class, but would also mean that the budgets will go down even more. Nowadays, is just a talent breeding competition, nine months till another summer exodus. But without European football, what is there left to cherish? please log in to view this image
