Ukraine in the UEFA rankings: Norway went ahead, Switzerland almost caught up

On August 16-18, the first matches of the qualifying play-off round were played. And this week has so far become the most unfortunate for Ukraine in the current European season. Two of our representatives – Dynamo, playing in the Champions League, and Dnipro-1, which started in the Europa League – did not bring a single hundredth point to the country’s rating, losing their nominally home matches: the people of Kiev – Benfica, Dnipro-1 – Cypriot AEK. This has never happened this season.

At the same time, it should be noted that all three of our remaining clubs guaranteed themselves the European Cup autumn. Shakhtar will definitely play in the Champions League group. Dynamo, if Benfica fails, will end up in the Europa League. Dnipro, even after losing to AEK in the sum of two matches, will play in the Conference League.

In total, after the first matches of the third qualifying round, Ukraine has 1.9 points in the asset. Ukraine received 0.8 points for getting Shakhtar into the group stage of the Champions League (4 bonus points divided by all the same five clubs). Dynamo almost equaled the Pitmen in terms of the number of points already earned in Europe this season: the White-Blues scored 3.5 points in four games played (three wins and a draw). Zarya and Vorskla, who stopped their performances, brought 0.2 points each.

At the same time, our gap from 10th place has grown to an indecent size – 4.3 points, and Belgium, which is going to this position, has five clubs left. Moreover, even going to the 11th position, Serbia and rising to the 12th place, having displaced Russia, Norway increased the gap from our country. And Switzerland breathes in the back of Ukraine, whose backlog from us at the moment is equal to one victory in qualifying. And at the same time, the Swiss also have three clubs left in European competition.