How form of Rangers, Celtic and Hearts leaves Scottish football bottom of European pile on crucial measure

State of the nation analyses are required when our Scottish representatives bomb in European competition.

Rangers' 7-1 mauling by Liverpool that marked the club's joint-worst defeat has set up a fearful prospect for Giovanni van Bronckhorst's men. (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

This week’s failures that add to a buttock-clenching collection this season came with almighty floggings for Rangers and Hearts in them being lashed 7-1 and 5-1 to Liverpool and Fiorentina respectively, and Celtic’s bluntness in their 2-0 defeat at home to RB Leipzig. They demand a suped-up version of the standard examination for such times. A sorriest-of-sorry state of the nation study, if you will. For the catyclismic co-efficient gathering, or, rather, lack of it, is utterly horrifying. For the rancid run – which it shouldn’t be forgotten began with excruciating qualifying exits for Motherwell and Dundee United – places Scotland at the very bottom of the pile across the entire continental football firmament on a crucial measure.

There are no fewer than 37 nations with clubs in the group stages across Champions League, Europa League and Conference League. Scotland has achieved quite the feat among this coterie. For on the pitch, the country’s representatives have accumulated a honking 6.5 coefficient points. That isn’t only the lowest total for any of the 37 nations with group representatives. It is also lower than four among UEFA’s 55 associations with no teams in the group domain. Among these are little Malta (with 10.5 coefficient points) and the Faroe Islands (nine points). The Faroe Islands, for goodness sake …

Now, Scotland isn’t alone in having group-stage involvement but only 6.5 coefficient points from on-field endeavours. Liechtenstein also sits on that total. Yet, the sixth-smallest country in the world can be forgiven for hardly racking up the points. After all, from the word go they only ever had one representative, FC Vaduz. Therefore that single club, currently struggling to make much of an impact in their Conference League section, have put as many coefficient points on the board since continental jousting kicked off in July as Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Dundee United and Motherwell together. Mortifying doesn’t begin to describe the parallel.

Celtic have lost twice to RB Leipzig in the Champions League.

Now you might wonder how it is that Scotland is even as high as the giddy ranking of 31st for coefficient points in the table of nations that covers the current season. It comes down to the fact that their position is inflated by the two four-point tranches of coefficient bonuses awarded to Celtic and Rangers for merely banking places in the Champions League group stages. A highest level from which they will depart next month. There is the fearful possibility Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s men will do so without supplementing their bonus. Four straight soul-destroying defeats in Group A makes that prospect all-too-real. A sequence that has left them with a -15 goal difference as they have failed to compete for all but brief periods against Jurgen Klopp’s men, twice, Napoli and Ajax. Celtic’s have fared a smidgen better in outcomes through gaining a solitary point, claimed by drawing 1-1 with Shakhtar Donetsk in Warsaw last month. And indeed, they have been well in every one of their Champions League encounters, despite their pair of Leipzig losses and home defeat by Real Madrid. However that does not alter the fact that one point is their lowest total following four games across their 11 Champions League campaigns. Or that, of the 32 group combatants, their record is poorer than all but two sides. Rangers, of course, one of those, with pointless Viktoria Plzen the other.

Hearts may be miffed at being lumped in with the Glasgow pair. They at least have rustled up a victory – a victory! – courtesy of their 2-0 success over RFS in Latvia a month ago. They are in the very lowest tier of European competition, though. And have also leaked 13 goals across thumpings away and home to Fiorentina, and their outclassing in Gorgie by İstanbul Başakşehir. A first European group campaign for the Edinburgh club in 18 years may provide certain allowances. Just not many.

The financial gulf is forever cited when Scottish teams flop in continental competition. Certainly, Rangers had an almighty task to make an impression in the group they were drawn in. Consider this, though. Liverpool, fresh from handing them their backsides in midweek, are highly likely to suffer the same fate when they face Manchester City this weekend. The same Manchester City held to a scoreless draw by Copenhagen in Denmark. Now, Rangers and Celtic are in a similar income bracket to Copenhagen, and of a similar standing. And no time soon will the team from the Danish capital be contesting a Europa League final, as Van Bronckhorst’s side did only a mere five months ago.

Such inroads suddenly seem to belong to another time … even if in a far less exacting domain. Certainly Celtic, Rangers and Hearts don’t look to have it in them to secure European participation beyond their current group campaigns. However, Scotland remains eighth in the UEFA rankings. They are firmly on course to be usurped by Belgium, but the slide should end there. In the short-term. And Celtic, Rangers and Hearts, on paper, have their most winnable games to come. Ange Postecoglou’s men will entertain Shakhtar, Ajax will be at Ibrox and Hearts host RFS before the group stages conclude and the season breaks for the Qatar World Cup.

Fiorentina's Luka Jovic, third from right, scores his side's opening goal against Hearts on Thursday.

As a result, for the season after next – 2024-25 – Scotland will remain in the top 10. That ranking will continue to afford both Celtic and Rangers the opportunity to compete in the revamped Champions League stages – which of them claims the Scottish championship next season will be automatic entrants – wherein 36 teams will be combined in one set-up. That will guarantee eight games at the very sharp end of global club football. And so, inevitably, more spikings for our brand leaders.

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