As high as 9, As low as 24

Phil Roberts 29/05/2008 11comments | Jump to last

So all the results are now in and all the rankings over for another year.

First up - In terms of Uefa ranking points for Season 2007-08 only, Everton were 10th. As a result, we are now ranked 50th in the Uefa rankings for next season's Uefa competitions. So where will that bring us in the Uefa Cup?

Well of the 49 teams above us, 11 didn't qualify for any European Competition (Newcastle, Alkmaar, Espanyol, Monaco, Boro, Leverkusen, Parma (who were relegated to Serie B), Lille, Auxerre, Bolton and Osasuna).

Furthermore 15 are directly into the league stages of the Champions League (Chelsea, United, Lyon, Inter, REal Madrid, Bayern Munich, PSV, Villareal, Roma, Porto, Werder Bremen, Sporting Lisbon, Zenit, Bordeaux and Celtic). So our worst possible Uefa Cup ranking could be 24th seeds.

However, a further 13 teams who are above us in the rankings are in the Champions Qualifiers and could therefore qualify for the Champions League group stage and not the Uefa Cup (Liverpool , Barcelona, Arsenal, Schalke, Juventus, Rangers, Marseille, Steaua Bucurest, Panathinaikos, Basel, Olympiakos, Fenerbache and Shakhtar Donetsk).

Furthermore 2 clubs (Stuttgart and Deportivo) are needing to qualify for the Uefa cup through the Intertoto. So best case could be that they lose (unlikely) and all the other 13 win through to the Champions League and we end up as 9th seeds.

I just hope we are not picking up one of the teams ranked 40-50 (best unseeded) or even Metalist Kharkiv who will be there again. Queen of the South would be nice. Easy on the travel budget and should be easy on the pitch.

Date in the diary is 29 August to see who we play and 18 September and 2 October for the actual games ? and let us be confident to put in 7 October for the group stage draw.

Reader Comments

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Andy Fletcher
1 Posted 29/05/2008 at 15:27:49

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You have made me very nervous suggesting QOS would be an easy game ! We should be careful what we wish for and not go claiming any "easy" games in this years UEFA Cup.

Martin Wareham
2 Posted 29/05/2008 at 17:09:30

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Here are some of the teams expected to be unseeded that we it would be nice to avoid:
43rd Borussia Dortmund
44th CSKA Sofia
48th Red Star Belgrade
51st Dinamo Zagreb
52nd Saint Etienne
53rd FC Zurich
56th Wolfsburg
61st Twente Enschede

Richard Harris
3 Posted 29/05/2008 at 18:00:23

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Good to see us in the mix. Whatever draw we get expect to hear the old cliche "there are no easy games in Europe" !! Hopefully there will be a few teams fearful of getting us in the draw.

Adam Cunliffe
4 Posted 29/05/2008 at 19:17:41

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I hope we get Brann again, are they init agen this year.

Øystein Lemvik
5 Posted 29/05/2008 at 19:29:20

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Brann are in the CL qualifying round, they start in the second round. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe if they lose out in the third round, they will enter the UEFA qualfication?

Dave Wilson
6 Posted 29/05/2008 at 19:38:02

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Adam

I’d rather avoid Brann, even if they do end up in it, remember how hard it was getting tickets,

Phil Roberts
7 Posted 29/05/2008 at 19:55:25

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Martin, there is a lot of water to pass under this bridge before we know the true seeding.

The top 40 ranked teams are seeded, and therefore no40 last year was Red Star Belgrade - who were seeded 115 in the total table.

If you look at this year, then the top 2 in your list are already above 115. But we need to remember - we are Everton. It is our destiny to suffer and have things difficult

cyril nugent
8 Posted 29/05/2008 at 21:46:40

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an everton team that pushed liverpool most of the season for champions league spot should surely fear no one in uefa draw plus new players coming in too will be lot stronger

Mark Hill
9 Posted 30/05/2008 at 13:11:51

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Lets get FC Twente....McClaren will be in charge by then, surely they will be the whipping boys....

Michael Kidd
10 Posted 30/05/2008 at 19:25:46

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How come Newcastle, Boro and Bolton are ranked higher than us?

Phil Roberts
11 Posted 30/05/2008 at 19:42:22

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Michael,

Because it is taken over the last 5 seasons and even if you don’t get into Europe, you still get a rating based on the other teams from your country.

Newcastle have been in the UEFA cup in 3 of the last 5 years, Boro 2 including getting to the final one year and Bolton did a lot better than we did in 2005-6. That’s why.

Four more years like this one and we would be ranked 5th - patience, patience