Women’s Champions League – How the competition works

By Andrew Crawshaw

I was intending to do a scouting report on PSV Eindhoven, our opponents on Saturday, but the stream of their match wasn’t licensed to be shown in the UK (or that was the message I repeatedly got).  What I thought I would do instead is clear up some questions I had regarding the competition itself.

The competition is not a straightforward knockout as you would suppose a cup competition to be.  That would have been too simple!

The competition really gets going in the group stage but that is a way off at the moment.

The entry into the competition depends on the number of Coefficient points each UEFA member association has earned over the previous five years.  The top six associations can enter their teams finishing in the top three league positions, The next 10 can enter two and the remaining associations just one.

The points are earned according to the results of each team in the competition.  Basically the more games you win the more points you get and the points for a win increase with each round.  The explanation page on the official UEFA.com website doesn’t agree with the way the tables below (also from the UEFA website) have been calculated so I can’t give you a better explanation.

Pos	Country	16/17	17/18	18/19	19/20	20/21	Total
1	France	20.0	17.5	19.5	20.0	15.0	92.0
2	Germany	14.5	13.0	15.0	16.5	16.5	75.5
3	England	11.5	17.5	10.5	11.5	17.5	68.5
4	Spain	11.5	8.0	14.0	15.0	15.5	64.0
5	Sweden	10.0	10.0	8.5	4.5	7.5	40.5
6	Czech Republic	5.0	11.0	8.0	5.5	7.0	36.5
7	Denmark	9.5	4.0	5.5	8.5	7.0	34.5
8	Netherlands	8.0	5.0	8.0	6.0	3.0	30.0
9	Kazakhstan	7.0	6.0	5.0	7.0	3.5	28.5
10	Italy	5.0	7.0	6.0	3.0	5.0	26.0
11	Iceland	4.0	8.0	3.0	8.0	2.0	25.0

So surprisingly, Kazakhstan are above Italy, as are Denmark, and the Netherlands.

The leading clubs are shown in this table and, I have also added the other three members of our round 1 group for comparison.

	Club	16/17	17/18	18/19	19/20	20/21	Club Points	20% Association Points	Total Coefficient
1	Olympique Lyonais	20.0	24.0	24.0	23.0	15.0	106.0	18.4	124.4
2	Barcelona	18.0	13.0	21.0	18.0	22.0	92.0	12.8	104.8
3	VFL Wolfsburg	14.0	14.0	21.0	13.0	21.0	13.0	15.1	28.1
4	Paris SG	20.0		15.0	17.0	15.0	67.0	18.4	85.4
5	Bayern Munich	15.0	15.0	5.0	17.0	12.0	20.0	15.0	35.0
6	Man City	19.0	19.0	4.0	9.0	15.0	66.0	1.0	67.0
7	Chelsea	4.0	16.0	17.0		20.0	57.0	13.7	70.7
22	Arsenal				14.0		14.0	13.7	27.7
53	PSV Eindhoven				3.0	3.0	6.0	6.0	12.0
62	Okzhptes					1.0	1.0	5.7	6.7
	Locomotiv Moscow						0.0	3.5	3.5

The table shows how Arsenal have been penalised by failing to qualify for this competition in most of the last 5 seasons.  We earned 14 points in 2019/20 for reaching the quarter finals, but that is that.  All clubs in this year’s competition also get 20% of the Association points meaning that we start the season with 27.7 making us the 22nd ranked team in the competition (important for seedings in the later rounds).

There are two paths to negotiate towards the round of 16 group stage.  The first is the Champions route where the individual Association champions have started.

The second is the league path where the third placed teams from the top 6 and the second placed teams in the associations ranked 7 to 16 have started including Arsenal.

This table from Wikipedia explains it pretty well

	Path	Teams entering in this round	Teams advancing from previous round
Round 1 (Mini-tournament)	Champions Path (43 teams)	43 champions from associations 8–50
	League Path (16 teams)	6 third-placed teams from associations 1–6 10 runners-up from associations 7–16
Round 2	Champions Path (14 teams)	3 champions from associations 5–7	11 winners of round 1 (Champions Path)
	League Path (10 teams)	6 runners-up from associations 1–6	4 winners of round 1 (League Path)
Group stage (16 teams)		4 champions from associations 1–4 (including title holders Barcelona)	7 winners of round 2 (Champions Path) 5 winners of round 2 (League Path)
Knockout phase (8 teams)			4 group winners of group stage 4 group runners-up of group stage

The winners of the first round of matches in the League Path are

Team	Association	Uefa Coefficient
Arsenal	England	27.7
Bordeaux	France	18.4
1899 Hoffenheim	Germany	15.1
Levante	Spain	12.8
PSV Eindhoven	Netherlands	9.0
Kristianstad	Switzerland	8.1
Milan	Italy	5.2
Rosenborg	Norway	4.8

The four second games on Saturday are

• Hoffenheim v Milan
• Bordeaux v Kristianstad
• Levante v Rosenborg
• Arsenal v PSV Eindhoven

The winners of these four matches will play in the second round where the following teams enter the competition

Team	Association	Uefa Coefficient
Lyon	France	124.4
Wolfsburg	Germany	97.1
Man City	England	79.7
Slavia Prague	Czech Republic	52.5
Rosengård	Sweden	49.1
Real Madrid	Spain	12.8

The top five teams are seeded so (should we beat PSV) we are bound to be drawn against one of Lyon, Wolfsburg, Slavia Prague or Rosengård in order to reach the knockout phase.  We can’t be drawn against Man City..  Lyon or Wolfsburg would be very difficult requiring both a poor display from them and a great performance from us. Prague or Rosengård merely difficult, but we would fancy our chances of qualification.

The group stage is relatively straightforward.  Qualifying teams go into one of four groups of four, with all teams playing each other home and away.  The top two from each group go into a knockout to the final.  Quarter and semi-finals played home and away. The Final is a one-off game in the Juventus Stadium Turin on 22 May 2022.

As reigning champions, Barcelona, go straight into the Group stage, as do the League Champions of the top three Associations.  As Barcelona were also Spanish Champions, Chelsea are promoted to automatic Group Stage entry along with PSG from France and Bayern Munich.