Scottish sides are in a strong position for European competition for the 2021/22 season following Basel’s elimination from the Europa League to Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday night.

Scotland are now guaranteed to finish in the top 15 of Uefa's coefficient table following the Swiss side’s exit, so there are now five European places up for grabs this season.

The Scottish Premiership champions and runners-up will enter the Champions League qualifiers. The winners will enter the third round and will only be required to come through two ties as opposed to four ties as Celtic have had to negotiate recently. The runners-up will enter the second round.

Scotland will have two representatives in the Champions League next season. Picture: SNS

Come next season it will be seven years since Scotland had two representatives – Celtic and Motherwell – in the Champions League.

The 2021 Scottish Cup winners will go into the third round of qualifying for the revamped Europa League, and will require to win two ties to reach the group stage. However, with the new streamlined nature of the tournament, it will be highly competitive with plenty of strong opposition.

But it presents a much better opportunity with Motherwell and Aberdeen starting in the first round of qualifiers this season, Rangers beginning in the second.

Season 2021/22 will see the introduction of a third European competition, the Europa Conference League. The 32-team group stage will be made up of the 10 losing teams dropping in from the Europa League play-off stage, plus 22 from the Conference League qualifiers.

Scotland will get two places in the tournament, teams finishing third and fourth in the league who will enter the second qualifying round.

Rangers better Real Madrid

Rangers' success in reaching the Europa League group stage for two seasons running despite starting in the first round of qualifying on both occasions has been a huge boost and taken pressure off Celtic with no other team going deep into European competition in recent years.

Dale Johnson, editor at ESPN FC and coefficients expert, revealed the club's run to the round of 16 of the Europa League, where they were defeated by Bayer Leverkusen, saw Steven Gerrard's men pick up as many UEFA coefficient points this campaign as Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund, and more than Real Madrid, with Celtic just behind.

Johnson also noted, Scottish sides will have to be consistent in their European success to hold onto their position in the coefficient table, or even progress with the top 10 bringing an automatic Champions League berth.

It will require a team that isn't Celtic or Rangers to have a good run in Europe, especially from 2021/22. Currently with four teams representing, each win is worth 0.50 coefficient points. With the addition of a fifth it drops to 0.40.

Rangers better Real Madrid coefficient as Scotland gets massive European places boost