Surely you knew that absolutely every football team is awarded points, which are later used to compile the overall rating of the teams. All this happens in the UEFA European Cup.
The principle of scoring is quite logical: the more the team went through to the group stage and the playoffs, the more points it received, and hence the higher position. We are talking about the passage to the League of Conferences, Europe and Champions
How UEFA odds affect match analysis?
Many people have a question: do the same odds from UEFA in any way affect the further analysis of the match before betting on football? So let’s look into this. Speaking about the period for which points are taken into account, this is the last 5 years. Agreed, quite a decent amount of time to build up a full picture. It turns out that if a team has not participated in European football cups during this time, it is only 20% of the points attributed to it.
It should be noted that each league has a different scoring system. In the Champions League, for example, teams get 4 points for qualifying for the round of 16, 2 for winning the group, 1 for a draw and 4 points for qualifying for the group. FC Bayern are currently leading the rankings with a total of 133 points. Manchester City are second with 126 points, while Liverpool are third with 122 points.
The leading team has managed to win all European cup and Champions League games. This ranking is also the basis for the formation of the participant groups. There are a total of 4 baskets, each containing 8 teams.
The first basket includes the ultimate winners of the Champions’ League and Europa League as well as the national competitions. The next 3 baskets are already formed according to the odds of each club. Through a special draw, the most popular player of each national team draws a balloon with the number of the basket in which his team will now be placed.
The UEFA rankings do not always include the strongest national teams
As we know, 16 strongest teams are selected for the Champions League playoffs. Let’s consider an interesting example. The fact is that 5 teams made their way to the 1/8, which are not in the list of 16 strongest teams.
Only one team has already made it to the 1/4, not from this rating. It was Porto, which was listed on the 19th line. This means that this rating still means something, because immediately 11 out of 16 teams managed to break into 1/8, and then another 7 teams – to 1/4. This information is great tips for beginners in sports betting.
To trust or not to trust?
Is it really necessary to pay attention to the ranking of the opposing team in the odds? And, in case one team is significantly inferior to the other, does it have any effect on the betting selection? Let’s explore this in more detail.
Let’s start by looking at the team rankings for the last season 2021-2022. As we can see, the Barcelona team is only ranked 7th. They are beaten by PSG, Real Madrid and Chelsea. The top three is rounded out by Liverpool. Manchester City has the silver medal. And the absolute leader is Germany’s Bayern.
The group stage of the prestigious Champions League ended in December. There, the players from Barcelona ended up in third place in the overall rankings. Second was Bayern and Benfica were the front-runners. The Barcelona players scored two clear victories over the Dinamo players.
They did, however, manage to earn one point against group-stage leaders Benfica. By the way, Benfica ended up only 26th in the overall rankings. Which all means that the same odds from UEFA are far from always correct and help bettors place the right bets. We advise you to stick to other statistical information that is publicly available.
For example the availability of strong players, the general physical and emotional state of the team, their schedule, previous performances, data on the head coach and much more. All this will surely help you avoid unfortunate and typical mistakes when you are thinking about and making your own sports predictions.
Back to Barcelona’s results. So why did it fail to maintain and justify its initial high results? It later emerged that the club itself was in a real deep and prolonged crisis at the time of the competition. The Spanish players were constantly losing points even at home, let alone in the Champions League.
Disadvantages of UEFA odds
Now let’s talk about the features of compiling the UEFA ranking itself. As we said above, it reflects data for 5 years at once. This certainly has advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, such a period of time helps to analyse the real situation more globally and thoroughly. But on the other hand, a lot can change during this long period of time. For example, certain teams may develop new weaknesses or, on the contrary, strengths which are significantly reflected in the game.
In the 2017-2018 season, the Schalke team was on the 2nd line. Because of this, they were able to enroll in the Champions League, and even reached 1/8. After 3 years, this football club was completely on the last line, with a lag of 15 points at once. As a result, Schalke needed 3 whole years to drop out of the rankings. This once again proves the fact that the rankings compiled by UEFA are for informational purposes only.
There is clearly no point in relying on it, especially when it comes to your bets. After all, the odds from UEFA do not reflect many factors. For example, the weather, scandals in teams, various disqualifications and health problems among players, the current physical preparation of the team, and much more.
So, as we found out, the ratings from UEFA do not contain up-to-date information. For this reason, it is clearly not worth counting on them. It is better to turn to other new and proven sources that are available to everyone. The mistake of many inexperienced bettors is that they analyze their predictions based on the UEFA rating.