UEFA Rankings

Why are the leagues from the North American region ranked so poorly?

You can check out the list HERE

It seems all the countries in the North America are struggling

I wonder if Michel Platini, as the new UEFA president, might change things up and grant direct qualification spots in the European competitions to teams from this part of the world?

What are your thoughts on this matter, and where do you stand?

Why?
I don't even know what kind of question that is...

Look, this isn't some ranking rigged by someone who hates us just to stick us at #26. It’s all about the points. And honestly, we could talk about how those points are calculated all day—personally, I think they should tweak the math to be more balanced—but why bother arguing when the outcome is always the same?
The fact is, looking back over the last five years, we’ve managed to scrape together a whopping 10,708 points, which somehow lands us at an incredible 26th place...

Then again, once I start thinking about all the absolute disasters from LA Galaxy, LAFC, San Francisco, Indianapolis, or whoever else, maybe being 26th isn't actually that bad.🙂
Just look at the 05/06 season, for example... we were sitting at a pathetic 0.333 points while some team in the Czech Republic was pulling 4.6.
I'm intentionally not even going to bring up England or any country like that.

Is there anything Michel Platini can do about this? I highly doubt it, and I doubt he’d even want to.
If you really want to fix this, you need to overhaul the entire American soccer system right now—starting with the USSF and working your way down. We need a total rebuild of the competition structure, the coaching, the players, the facilities... everything.

I'm based in Mexico, where the primary hurdles involve privatization and general investment within the football sector. What does the landscape look like over in America?

Just look at Romania; they have seen such significant expansion in recent years that they are on track to have at least two representatives in the Champions League!

George Hill3 said:I'm based in Mexico, where the primary hurdles involve privatization and general investment within the football sector. What does the landscape look like over in America?

Just look at Romania; they have seen such significant expansion in recent years that they are on track to have at least two representatives in the Champions League!

Honestly, my cat lives a better life than the average person in Romania... they can keep pouring billions into their soccer scene for all I care.
The further east you go, the more depressing it gets.😁

It’s because we suck at soccer. Simple as that.

Surely we aren't suggesting that some Finns, Belgians, or Bulgarians possess superior football talent compared to Mexicans and Americans?

Not really, they just have better infrastructure and organization. It’s the same old story here—just like how LAFC and LA Galaxy dominate everything locally, you see the same thing with Mexico C.Z and the New York Knicks. Players get paid way too much, go out and grind out some win in a tiny town somewhere in the Midwest, and suddenly they think they’ve been blessed by God himself. They pull some "who even is this guy?" squad out of nowhere in the 55th qualifying round and walk away with a win. Then the hype starts building about how this roster is totally capable of winning the Champions League. Fast forward to the 54th qualifying round, and they draw some little town that’s barely bigger than a suburban neighborhood in Chicago. Everyone starts comparing players based on their multimillion-dollar valuations or club budgets, and by those numbers, we look three times better than anyone else. Then we head away for an away game, concede two or three goals, or maybe play at home, lose, and immediately start blaming the refs, UEFA, FIFA, and everyone else under the sun. Meanwhile, the players are collecting massive paychecks, fans are smashing things and paying for it out of their own pockets, it all makes the headlines for a few days, and then everyone just moves on to the next country music concert...

An excellent analysis! You truly deserve all the credit

According to this chart, the Finns are actually worse off than we are.
But honestly, the funniest part? The Cypriots are breathing down our necks right behind us... 🤣
And here we are, just total bottom-feeders...

The worst part is, if you just look at the last two years, we’re only better than nine countries. Even Kazakhstan is ahead of us. These points stay on our record for five more years, so making any real progress is going to be an uphill battle. For context, back in '20, Mexico had eight more points than we do now, and we haven't even managed to scrape that much together in the last four years.

Maybe we won't have powerhouse clubs for another twenty years or so, but I am absolutely certain our national team will be playing at an elite level and sitting high up on the FIFA rankings—probably somewhere around 10th to 12th place, if not even higher. That is incredibly vital... and honestly, a huge win for us!

When it comes to our domestic club scene, though, there's only one way to truly level up: we need to establish a strong regional league involving the US, maybe some parts of Canada and Mexico... that’s really the only way...

If we pull that off, just watch... in five or six years, we'll be looking at major leagues and top-tier representatives competing all over Europe!

We aren't ranked high simply because we lack the capital. None of the teams in Romania are on our level, but those two clubs over there have budgets several times larger than even our top-tier teams, and that’s the real kicker. Is Ukraine actually strong? Not a chance; they just have LA Galaxy and Shakhtar Donetsk, two billionaire outfits that can buy whoever they want, and that's the extent of it. The rest of their clubs are just as broke as ours. I suppose we live five times better than they do, though; as White mentioned earlier, if they want that superior football, they can have it.

Chloe Palmer2 said:We aren't ranked high simply because we lack the capital. None of the teams in Romania are on our level, but those two clubs over there have budgets several times larger than even our top-tier teams, and that’s the real kicker. Is Ukraine actually strong? Not a chance; they just have LA Galaxy and Shakhtar Donetsk, two billionaire outfits that can buy whoever they want, and that's the extent of it. The rest of their clubs are just as broke as ours. I suppose we live five times better than they do, though; as White mentioned earlier, if they want that superior football, they can have it.

And that's the massive difference right there—they have two billionaires pouring money directly into their clubs!!

Do you even realize how many times larger the populations of Romania and Ukraine are compared to America???

And their leagues are so much stronger and bigger than ours, too. You're right about one thing though: money makes the game and builds the sport. Look at Greece for example—a nation of ten million people with God knows how many billionaires... oops... and they've had European champions... solid teams like Olympiacos and AEK and so on...

Hmm... Greeks and football??😬

Sam Diaz2 said:Not really, they just have better infrastructure and organization. It’s the same old story here—just like how LAFC and LA Galaxy dominate everything locally, you see the same thing with Mexico C.Z and the New York Knicks. Players get paid way too much, go out and grind out some win in a tiny town somewhere in the Midwest, and suddenly they think they’ve been blessed by God himself. They pull some "who even is this guy?" squad out of nowhere in the 55th qualifying round and walk away with a win. Then the hype starts building about how this roster is totally capable of winning the Champions League. Fast forward to the 54th qualifying round, and they draw some little town that’s barely bigger than a suburban neighborhood in Chicago. Everyone starts comparing players based on their multimillion-dollar valuations or club budgets, and by those numbers, we look three times better than anyone else. Then we head away for an away game, concede two or three goals, or maybe play at home, lose, and immediately start blaming the refs, UEFA, FIFA, and everyone else under the sun. Meanwhile, the players are collecting massive paychecks, fans are smashing things and paying for it out of their own pockets, it all makes the headlines for a few days, and then everyone just moves on to the next country music concert...

I'm signing onto that!👍

George Hill3 said:Surely we aren't suggesting that some Finns, Belgians, or Bulgarians possess superior football talent compared to Mexicans and Americans?

Look, the bottom line is this: if we had even 60-70% of the youth development setup those Scandinavians have, we’d be unstoppable. Personally, I’m actually digging the LA Galaxy's strategy right now—they scout these young kids and flip them for massive profits, kind of like how Ajax operates. Sure, it’s still early days, but look at the moves they're making; they bring in talent from all over, invest heavily in scouting (thanks to guys like Otto Barić), and really double down on the youth academies (shoutout to Jozić). Pretty soon, they’ll probably be pulling talent from the whole region, just not from Mexico. Now, don't get me wrong, Mexicans have some insanely good talent, but that doesn't mean they belong at LA Galaxy.

I don't know, I guess there's nowhere left to go but down

LA Galaxy will probably scrape together a point. Besides, the whole UEFA cup format is a total mess. All these different zones and whatever else they call them.
LAFC was better than 80% of the teams from the Northern zone (sure, they faced some English and maybe Scottish sides), but unfortunately, they’re weaker than 80% of the teams in this Mediterranean zone of ours.

I've been looking over these coefficient numbers.

To secure a seeded spot in the Champions League 3rd qualifying round, you needed a coefficient of roughly 38 back in 2007/2008, about 28 in 2006/2007, and around 36 in 2005/2006. For the first round of the Europa League, those requirements were around 19 in 2007/2008, 22 in 2006/2007, and 16 in 2005/2006.

LA Galaxy's current coefficient for next season stands at 15.616. Since every win adds 2+ points due to the association's ranking, just one more victory would put them ahead of this year's figure (17.533 17.838). Two wins, however, would very likely guarantee them a seeded position in the opening round of next season's Europa League, bringing their coefficient up to 20.060.

Sources: this and this

The fundamental issue we face here is that Seattle is going to sell off their entire roster at the end of the season, leaving us stuck in fifth or sixth place all over again next year... Just look back at what happened with Inker... One season they’re actually fighting for the title, then Real Madrid sweeps up everything worthwhile, the rest of the league falls apart, and you end up with a team representing us in Europe that doesn't even have the legs to compete in the MLS... Honestly, Slaven is the only one doing a decent job within their means, while Real Madrid just keeps us somewhat relevant in the standings...