For the 2015-16 European competitions, the UEFA member associations were allocated according to their 2014 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2009-10 to 2013-14. (Scotland was ranked 23rd in the 2014 UEFA country coefficient, for your information.) This table may (or may not) show who performed to expectation, and who did not.
| 2009-10 | 2010-11 | 2011-12 | 2012-13 | 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | ||
| Aberdeen | ||||||||
| Celtic | ???????? | |||||||
| Dundee United | ||||||||
| Falkirk | ||||||||
| Hearts | ||||||||
| Hibs | ||||||||
| ICT | ||||||||
| Motherwell | ||||||||
| Rangers | ||||||||
| St. Johnstone | ||||||||
2009-2010
Cast your mind back to the 2009-2010 season…Celtic manager Tony Mowbray had signed Marc-Antoine Fortune (mind him?) in a deal worth £3.8 million; Aberdeen started the new season under new manager Mark McGhee; St. Johnstone were competing in the Scottish Premier League again after being promoted as First Division champions the previous season, and Inverness Caledonian Thistle would go on to win promotion to the SPL for the first time as First Division champions.
The Premier League champions that season would be Rangers. As reigning champions, Rangers also gained direct entry into the Group stage of the 2009-10 UEFA Champions League. (Scotland was ranked 10th in the 2014 UEFA country coefficient, for your information.) Rangers ranked 28 in the UEFA Team Rankings and barely over a year removed from appearing in the UEFA Cup final, were seeded in Pot 2 and favourites to qualify for the knockout phase. Instead, they failed to win any of their six matches (including a couple of 4-1 humpings at home to Sevilla and Unirea Urziceni) as they finished bottom of the group and unceremoniously dumped out of European football, not even able to manage a third-placed finish that would have seen them enter the round of 32 stage in the first season of the new-fangled Europa League. Celtic entered the ‘Non-champions’ stream of Champions League qualifying rounds, but could hardly be blamed for going out to Arsenal in the play-off round.
Celtic were directly transferred to the Europa League Group Stages, but hardly covered themselves in glory - they finished 3rd from a group they were expected to qualify from based on their ranking. Hearts went out in the play-off round of the Europa League, although in fairness they were ranked below their conquerors Dinamo Zagreb. Motherwell (who qualified through the UEFA Fair Play ranking) actually managed to win a couple of European ties before going out in the 3rd Qualifying Round to a Steaua Bucharest that was ranked above Celtic; Aberdeen went out at the same stage, but in far more embarrassing circumstances – in Mark McGhee’s first game in charge of his old club, his side went down 5-1 at home to Sigma Olomouc of the Czech Republic. Other than the witnessing a tired Dons getting picked apart in the final 10 minutes as they thanklessly chased a positive result in vain, and experiencing the bizarre sight of Derek Young (who played at right back that day) watching cross-field balls repeatedly whistle over his head like a dog by the flight of a Frisbee, my enduring memory is driving to South Queensferry after the match for a friend’s wedding that was taking place the following day – on entering the local pub, I was greeted by a Hibernian supporter who chose to laugh in my face while deriding my team’s humiliating performance. (More on Hibernian’s efforts in Europe later…)
Possibly the most embarrassing result of the lot was Falkirk’s 2nd qualifying round exit to Vaduz of Liechtenstein, who then played in the second tier of the Swiss league system. Falkirk’s own participation came as a result of being the Scottish Cup runners-up, a qualifying route that stubbornly persisted for far too long following the defunction of the European Cup Winners’ Cup. Indeed, this historic anomaly wasn’t changed until 2014.
(NB - for all that the above results make for pitiful reading, the 2009-2010 season was actually an improvement on the previous season, where Celtic, Rangers, Motherwell, Queen of the South - another beneficiary of qualification by reason of being Scottish Cup runners up - and Hibernian failed to progress a single round in European competition between them!)
2010-11
Rangers provide their last significant contribution to Scotland’s Club Coefficient. Again being provided direct entry into the Champions League Group stage, they again failed to qualify for the knockout stage – however, after transferring to Round of 32 in the Europa League, they did manage to knockout the higher ranked Sporting Lisbon before bowing out to PSV Eindhoven in the last 16. Celtic once again failed to progress from ‘Non-champions’ qualifying, knocked out by the higher ranked Sporting Braga in the 3rd qualifying round.
Celtic again dropped down to the Europa League, this time into the Play-off round, but after an encouraging 2-0 home win, the Celts were hammered 4-0 in the return leg at lower ranked Utrecht and missed out on the Group Stage; Dundee United & Motherwell were also knocked out at the same stage, both by higher ranked opposition - United were knocked out by AEK Athens, while Well actually managed to win a couple of rounds against Nordic opposition before finally being conquered by Odense of Denmark. Less impressive were Hibs, thrashed 6-2 on aggregate by the lower ranked NK Maribor. Of course, you wouldn’t expect to see the Old Firm stumble against such Slovenian small fry…
2011-12
The final death throes of Rangers in Europe. Entering the Champions League in the 3rd Qualifying Round, the Gers (still ranked 33 in the UEFA Team Rankings at this time) were beaten 1-0 at Ibrox by Malmo and could only manage a 1-1 draw in the return leg in Sweden. Dropping down to the Play-off round of the Europa League, they drew none other than… NK Maribor! Beaten, 2-1 in Slovenia, the Light Blues couldn’t win the home leg and went out of a second consecutive European competition in the space of just over three weeks.
Celtic’s own Europa League campaign could well have been derailed at the same stage after Sion defeated them in the initial two-legged tie by an aggregate score of 3-1; however, Sion were forced to forfeit the tie after UEFA found them guilty of fielding ineligible players over the two games. Celtic progressed to the Group Stage – for all the good it did them; they finished third in the group and were knocked out before reaching the knockout stages. It is open to interpretation whether you consider that Celtic were unlucky in this respect… Although benefitting from Sion having to forfeit the Play-off round tie, this was not before the Group Stage draw had been made with Sion in it. Due to Sion’s lower ranking, they were seeded in Pot 4 for the group draw – Celtic’s far superior ranking would have seen them in Pot 2. On the other side of the coin, Celtic’s ranking would have also indicated an expected finish of second place in the group they replaced Sion in – a result that would have seen them qualify for the knockout phase.
Hearts made the play-off round of the Europa League with a win over Paksi SE of Hungary before having the misfortune of drawing Tottenham Hotspur in the play-off round - Spurs hammered the Jam Tarts 5-0 at Tynecastle to effectively settle the tie in the first leg. Dundee United was also desperately unlucky to go out to lower ranked Slask Wroclaw in the 2nd qualifying round. I was living in Dundee at the time and as this coincided with the Dandies’ own European exile an Arab friend of mine was good enough to invite me along with him to the George Fox Stand for the return leg at Tannadice. Trailing 1-0 from the first leg in Poland, the Terrors roared into a 2-0 lead in the opening 5 minutes through ‘silverkissers’ (look it up on Twitter…) Keith Watson and David Goodwillie; later, a John Daly penalty before HT had them up 3-1 on the night and 3-2 on aggregate. Unfortunately, late in the game Slask curled a superb shot into the top right-hand corner from 25 yards out and despite United throwing men forward in the closing stages - and Daly hitting the crossbar in injury time – the Poles went through on away goals.
2012-13
Arguably the only time since the 2008 UEFA Cup final that either side of the Old Firm has inarguably ‘punched above its weight’ in European competition. Having twice went to ‘Hel’ and back – Helskini & Helsingborg to be precise – to reach the Champions League Group Stage, Celtic came through a group containing Barcelona, Benfica and Spartak Moscow to finish second and qualify for the Round of 16. The 2-1 win over Barca, on the week that the club celebrated their 125th anniversary, remains one of the Euro highlights at Celtic Park. They were comfortably ousted 5-0 on aggregate by Juventus, but that does not detract from the success of getting to the knockout phase of the Champions League in the first place. Following the demise of The Rangers Football Club Plc, Motherwell also found itself in the rarefied air of Champions League football, but was also ousted 5-0 on aggregate to Panathinaikos. (Despite finishing second in Greece the previous season, Panathinaikos was higher ranked than Celtic that season.)
Motherwell, as with the other Scottish clubs in that season’s Europa League, had little luck of the draw. Well drew Levante of Spain in the play-off round, losing 3-0 on aggregate to round, while at the same stage of the competition Hearts drew opposition from the English Premier League for the second successive season and did not disgrace themselves – a 1-0 loss at Tynecastle followed by a 1-1 draw at Anfield. It was also my own second successive visit to Tannadice on European business – this time in the Shed – to see United this time take on Dynamo Moscow. Again, I can attest that the Terrors performed admirably on the night, leading 2-1 before being denied victory when a deflected shot looped over the United keeper to level matters in injury time. It seemed a crucial blow at the time, although the subsequent 5-0 pumping handed out by the Musora in the return leg suggests they had a gear or two in reserve… St. Johnstone rounded out a fruitless Europa League campaign, losing 2-0 in Turkey to Eskisehirspor and only capable of a 1-1 draw in the return leg in Perth.
2013-14
Celtic managed to get through three rounds – and as the seeded team in each round – to qualify for the Champions League Group Stages, but not before a massive scare in the play-off round against Kazakh Sheep Sacrificers Shakhtar – recovering from a 2-0 defeat in Karagandy to win 3-0 at Celtic Park in the return leg. Having been drawn into a group involving fellow former European champions Milan, Barca & Ajax, a 2-1 home win against the latter was all Celtic had to show for their efforts as they finished bottom of the group and fell out of Europe.
In the Europa League, Motherwell were beaten home and away in the third qualifying round by Kuban Krasnodar; by contrast, St. Johnstone managed to join Well in the same round by pulling off an upset victory over Rosenborg with a fine 1-0 win in Trondheim, followed up with a 1-1 draw back in Perth – Saints also came agonisingly close to another upset, finally bowing out following a penalty shootout loss to Minsk. The only embarrassment this season was Hibernian. Not that it was unexpected to go out to a favoured Malmo side, but to lose 9-0 on aggregate? And to lose 7 (SEVEN) of them at Easter Road to boot?? Surely the most humiliating result suffered by a Scottish side in our history of competing in European fitba’ - I certainly hope a certain Hibee in South Queensferry was watching…
Martin Ingram (MI) is our Aberdeen Correspondent. Legend has it that he is the tallest man in the Red Army. He writes regularly for Aberdeen fanzine The Red Final.
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