Champions League - Bundesliga moving up

One of my fellow podcaster and contributor to this blog - The Gooner aka Sam - favorite pet topic is starting to gain some momentum. With all the "excitement" of the Carling Cup...terrible loss for Arsenal...a story came out that Germany has surpassed Italy in terms of UEFA coefficients. Confused? Basically the coefficients are ways for FIFA and UEFA to determine the strength of leagues and nations, resulting in how many teams per league can qualify for the Champions League and Europa Cup as well as where national teams get seeded for qualifiers. For a more in depth explanation click here.

What is interesting is that for the past few years it was always the "big three" in Europe - La Liga in Spain, EPL in England and Serie A in Italy. These three leagues were seen as the top of the hierarchy allowing them to send 4 clubs to the Champions League, but Germany had been quietly creeping up and they have finally ousted Italy from the guaranteed 4 clubs ranks. A testament to Bundesliga clubs who have done well in both European Cup competitions and to some degree a reflection of he disarray in Italy. One has to wonder the impact of the 2006 Calcipoli scandal which saw the likes of Juventus and Fiorentina ousted from Champions League and Lazio kicked out of the then UEFA cup. Juventus was stripped of previous Serie A titles and sent to Serie B. Juventus was a force during those seasons and who knows how they would have fared in the Champions League - they had reached the 1/4 finals in 2005 and 2006.

Couple this with the Bundesliga and its concerted efforts to develop talent from the youth ranks and practicing fiscal responsibility and you get what we have today - Italy down to 3 clubs and Germany up to 4. The interesting fact is Italy's coefficient is closer to France in 5th place than they are to Germany. If Italy falls behind France it will be a true reflection of how far Serie A has fallen in Europe...seems like Sam was on to something!

Rank 2011	Rank 2010	Mvmt	League	2006–07	2007–08	2008–09	2009–10	2010–11	Coeff.	CL places	EL places	Total
1	1	—	England	16.625	17.875	15.000	17.928	15.500	82.928	4	3	7
2	2	—	Spain	19.000	13.875	13.312	17.928	13.214	77.329
3	4	+1	Germany	9.500	13.500	14.333	18.083	14.333	68.103
4	3	−1	Italy	11.928	10.250	11.375	15.428	11.000	59.981	3		6
5	5	—	France	10.000	6.928	11.000	15.000	10.583	53.511
6	9	+3	Portugal	8.083	7.928	6.785	10.000	11.800	44.596