Ah yes, the UEFA Coefficients. Let me come straight out and say it: I am an UEFA- Coefficient Junkie, or Jünger (deciple) as I have heard it referred to on the internet.
For the Uninitiated: the UEFA Coefficients (or the UEFA- Fünfjahreswertung in German) is the way that UEFA regulates how many teams each member country sends to its competitions, i.e. the Champions League and the Europaleague. The method is thus: Every win by one of the teams in your league playing in European competitions gets you 2 points, a draw 1 and a loss logically 0 points. All the points are divided by the number of teams your league sends into Europe. The statistics are collated for 5 years, updated at the end of every season. Europaleague and Champions League wins count the same, though there are bonus points for reaching both the groupstages and the knock- out rounds in the Champions League.
Example: Bayern Munich vs Real Madrid. Bayern win the game 2-1. So, two points for a win, divided by six, which is the number of teams that the Bundesliga had participating in Europe in the 2011/2012 season. All too briefly in the case of Dortmund :(. But that is a topic for a whole other post on its own.
My fandom stated in 2008, I actually don't remember what the concrete event was. I came across a mention of the Coefficients and thought: This looks interesting. So I decided to do what every person nowadays does: ask Google. Google gave me http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/ , run by a Dutch blogger and statistics lover, in English, Mr. Bert Kassies. One klick, and it was love at first site for me. I was hooked. I was sinking, being pulled ever deeper into the maze of numbers, the ups and downs of coutries I did not even care about. But I could not resist. Who would win the 15th spot? Why did Romania first race up the table, only to plunge down again even faster? Through the Coefficients I started caring more about the UEFA- Cup/the Europaleague. And not just the groupstages, but all the pre-qualifying rounds too. The statistics fascinated me, and I'm not even a numbers person. Aditionally learned more about leagues and clubs outside the traditional big four or five.
It also helped, that around that time there were first signs of a Bundesliga recovery, who had posted an annus horribilis in 2003/04, when not a single German team had managed to reach the knock- out rounds of the UEFA competitions. However, by 2008 some clever people were noticing that the Bundesliga was staging a come- back and might even be able to overtake the Serie A in third spot, the last spot that gives you three Champions League teams. That slow overtaking manouver, which was only complete after 2010/2011 was utterly fascinating to watch, provided much discussion and often left me chewing my fingernails when German clubs were playing in Europe.
Now that Germany has pretty much secured the third place with the distance to Serie A now being more than 15 points, a huge gap by coefficient standards, I am more relaxed in my fandom. I still follow the ups (Portugal) and downs (Scotland) keenly and probably will continue to do so since I know few things less fascinating than the UEFA- Coefficients in European football.
All that is left for the Bundesliga Clubs is to actually win a title again...preferably sometime soon.
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