Coefficient Watch: Aberdeen In The Spotlight

Entering the 3rd round of qualifying for European competitions, Scotland has three clubs still alive and all three are expected to have challenging opponents to advance to the final qualifying. As far as the coefficient is concerned, however, Aberdeen are in the spotlight.

While in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t particularly matter with the coefficient, they just need any and all teams to win as many games as possible, Aberdeen have a chance to help a little bit extra as they face Croatian club HNK Rijeka.

Scotland currently ranks 19th in their coefficient, the spot where it makes a real difference is getting to 15th where Scotland would have two clubs who could try to qualify for Champions League instead of just one.

On of the countries between Scotland and that 15th spot is Croatia, who currently sit two spots ahead of Scotland at 17th and only having two teams remaining.

Aberdeen knocking off Rijeka would be a significant blow to Croatia, who is already doing quite poorly in Europe this year, as it would not only boost Scotlands coefficient but would also put Croatia to just one team remaining in the competition.

So while the true merits of actively rooting for other clubs in Europe remains questionable, if you have ever been at all on the fence about it, this would be the one time to hop off of it and root for Aberdeen.

It is almost doubly true since we now know the draw for the next round should any club advance, and while it won’t be easy, both Rangers and Aberdeen dodged any highly difficult draw meaning that they have a real chance to get two teams into the group stages of Europa League.