Scottish European Qualifying Matches results 2025/26 =
20/20 matches played: 5 wins + 8 draws + 7 lossesScottish European League Phase Matches counter 2025/26 =
11/22 matches played: 1 wins + 2 draw + 8 losses
We are now officially half way through the ‘minimum’ number of Scottish matches - 11 of 22 have been played. With 8 losses giving us a loss rate of 73%, we can have no complaints about where the coefficient is heading. Compare that to last night’s conquerors of Celtic - FC Midtjylland. They have a 90% win rate in Europe this season, winning 9 of 10 matches; drawing the other 1-1 at home to Hibernian.
I produced the below graphic last time out, showing how a season as the 33rd best performing nation would be Scotland’s worst ever individual season. Well it’s got worse, not better.
We are now the 36th best performing nation this season, scoring fewer coefficient points than Gibraltar, Armenia, North Macedonia, Iceland, Israel, Finland, Kosovo, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Romania and Azerbaijan.
To finish in the top 15, we would need to be within the 15 best performing nations in most of the five seasons that contribute to the 5-year rolling coefficient. By the end of this season, we will have managed it just once - in the season Rangers reached the Europa League final. Since then we’ve performed (out of 55 nations); 29th, 16th, 17th, + wherever we finish this year. The recent collective performance is not deserving of a top 15 ranking.
RANGERS
Rangers are out. Not officially, but no team lost their first 3 matches and progressed last season, never mind their first four. They’ll likely need four wins to progress, as even 10 points (three wins and a draw) probably won’t be enough this season.
For Rangers, it’s solely about earning some prize money in the remaining matches (€450,000 per win), while trying to add anything to the coefficient, to help themselves and Scotland in the upcoming seasons. They’ll also be eager to end what is now their longest ever European losing run (seven matches), just one short of the Scottish record of eight consecutive European defeats set by Motherwell a decade ago.
Rangers faced difficult opponents last night of course, a team challenging at the top of Serie A. It was Rangers 15th defeat to Italians in 26 meetings, and that’s now five consecutive matches against Italian sides in which Rangers have failed to score, (Fiorentina 0-0 x2 & Napoli 0-3 x2). Classing their penalty shootout win over Fiorentina in the UEFA Cup Semi Final in 2008 as a victory, rather than a draw, and Scottish clubs have recorded just 20 wins from 85 matches against Italian opposition.
Celtic were the last Scottish side to defeat Italian opposition, famously beating Lazio home and away in the 2019/20 season. That was only the second Scottish away victory to an Italian side - ever - after Rangers beat Livorno in Italy in the 2006/07 UEFA Cup. The match was a breeze for Roma in what was their first trip to Scotland since the 1984 European Cup Semi Final, when they overturned a 2-0 first-leg deficit with a controversial 3-0 win in Rome later found to have involved referee bribery.
CELTIC
With 4 points from 4 matches, Celtic still have a chance - but require some big victories from tough matches against Italian and Dutch opposition; Feyenoord and Bologna away and Roma and Utrecht at home.
After last night’s familiar tale of Celtic ineptitude and capitulation away from home in Europe, Martin O’Neill said that he hoped 10 points would be enough for progression. Unfortunately that might not be the case.
The overall number of draws (11) is much lower in the Europa League this season - only 15% of the total number of matches, compared to nearly 25% last season. What this means is that the points tally required to finish in the top 24 is likely to be higher than the 10 points (-2 GD) that was needed last season.
Last season saw fewer draws than expected in the Champions League, meaning 11 points (and a -4 GD) were needed to progress instead of 10 points. On that basis, if 11 points are also required in this year’s Europa League, Celtic would need two wins and a draw from those remaining four matches. Difficult.
ABERDEEN
Aberdeen picked up what could be a valuable draw against the team that was leading the Conference League after two matches, AEK Larnaca. There was a glorious late chance for Aberdeen to win the game, which would have completely turned their campaign on its head.
With 7 points (GD -3) required last season (Hearts were still eliminated on goals scored with that record), Aberdeen will need at least two victories. Two home games are next, Noah and Strasbourg, and unfortunately Aberdeen must win both. They will then go into the final match in Prague probably still needing a draw to progress, due to the poor goal difference as a result of the hammering in Athens.
Aberdeen’s draw not only kept their qualification hopes alive for another week but also added €133,000 to their prize pot. With €400,000 awarded per win in the Conference League, two successive home victories would boost both their progression chances and their revenue, which is especially valuable given this could be their last league phase participation for several years (given how much harder qualification will become).
SCOTLAND
Aberdeen were the only side to earn coefficient points last night. A league phase draw is worth 0.2 points, adding to their 0.1 from the qualifiers. As noted earlier, 2.6 points is a dismal season.
For the coefficient, it’s no longer a question of if Scotland can finish in the top 15, but when it becomes mathematically impossible. The gap to the nations above has widened again, and obviously the remaining possible points have dropped by another 1.2.
Scotland sit 3.45 points behind Switzerland in 15th, with only 11 matches remaining (assuming all three Scottish clubs exit at the league phase) - giving a maximum of 4.4 points still available. After the next matchday, that will drop to eight matches and a maximum of 3.2 points.
If the gap to 15th exceeds 3.2 points after the next round, Scotland’s top-15 hopes will be confirmed as over once all clubs are officially eliminated. Even if positive results extend the wait, it would only be delaying the inevitable.
CLUB COEFFICIENT
I’ll end on an update to the club coefficient table, which will (likely) be used to award an automatic Champions League place at the end of the season - purely because I promised to update this every week, rather than there being any realistic prospect of being utilised by a Scottish team this season.
The highest ranked team in this table, THAT ALSO WINS THEIR DOMESTIC TITLE, will qualify automatically for the Champions League (assuming the UCL winner has already qualified)
You can read more in a previous weekly preview explaining why a club’s individual coefficient is still important. Despite four defeats, Rangers remain top of the table above, but they look unlikely to win the Scottish league and therefore won’t benefit from the automatic Champions League place. Even if Celtic win the Premiership, they too are unlikely to gain from it, as too many higher ranked clubs would need to either not win their own titles or be overtaken by Celtic in the club coefficient rankings.
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