Scottish football coefficient's biggest week and the 360/1 dream - 'I need to put a couple of quid on!'

It might be hailed as the greatest innovation of all time in Scottish football if it helps all five Scottish clubs end this week still involved in European competition. Avoiding elimination comes with an extra special bonus: guaranteed European participation for much of the rest of this year.

We have reached crunch time: the second leg of the play-off rounds. All to play for. It could come down to extra time and – god forbid – dreaded penalties.

Pound signs will be flashing in the eyes of owners. For some, maybe even some of the more enlightened of these owners, it’s all about coefficient points. With another Scottish football crisis summit just around the corner, what a timely boost it would be if three, perhaps four, out of Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Hibs and Motherwell were able to make it through.

Celtic are of course assured league phase football whatever happens against LASK in Linz on Tuesday night.

However, there is no getting away from it: Europa League instead of Champions League football would represent a crushing blow for Martin O’Neill’s side, since they are already reckoned to have one foot in European football’s premier club competition following a 3-0 first leg win. As for Rangers, aiming a little lower in the Conference League, things are slightly sketchier for a team in such extreme transition. A 1-0 first leg lead over FK Jablonec ought to be enough to work with in the Czech Republic but you never know.

For someone like Gavin Noon, the brains behind the absolutely essential Scotland's Coefficient Substack account, the coming days are like Christmas week. He is hopeful that a minimum of three teams can qualify for league phase football but is praying for four, which would be a first for Scottish football.

Motherwell have the toughest task. Already trailing 3-1 against Freiburg from the home leg, they need to score twice at least against last season’s Europa League runners-up just to force extra time.

“That’s the main disappointment for me,” says Noon. “If they had gone to Germany even 2-1 down ….Motherwell have consistently played the best football of the last six months and yet they are the ones with the least chance. A lot of that is down to the draw. It would be the best comeback in Scottish football’s European history if they could overturn that two-goal deficit.”

The fate of Hearts and Hibs following draws against Rapid Vienna and Gent respectively remain most firmly in the balance. “I’d say both are probably 60-40 against (qualifying),” says Noon. Although Hibs are at least at home against the Belgians, they won’t be easy to overcome.

Helpfully, Noon has taken a week off from his day job, which often involves unsocial shift patterns, and will be able to follow the action. He is a member of a perhaps dying breed. Unburdened by tribalism, he is desperate for all five teams to progress for the boost it would give to Scotland’s perpetually – it seems – wilting coefficient prospects.

“This is the biggest week of the season for me because it’s the last round, and we will know how many teams will get through,” he says. “In a worst-case scenario, we could only have Celtic, which would be so deflating. We would tumble even further down the rankings. Or it could be historic, allowing us to wonder how high up the rankings can we go?”

Last week, he notes, was a “reasonably good week” in that it saw Scotland rise two places in the coefficient table to 18th, the spot occupied at the start of the season. Reaching 15th is one key aim, since it would retain the current European entry points for Scottish clubs. It’s already established that just four teams qualify next season.

360/1 hope - ‘I need to put a couple of quid on!’

As Noon noted in a recent post, it is rare enough having five Scottish teams playing in the same week in Europe. But to emerge, as happened last week, having suffered just one defeat was something worth celebrating. Noon provided a typically deep dive by working out that the last time at least four Scottish sides avoided defeat in a five-club European week, with three of them keeping clean sheets, was September 1989.

The last time five Scottish sides won in the same European week? September 1971, when Celtic, Rangers, Dundee, Aberdeen and St Johnstone – who recorded a fabulous 3-0 win over SV Hamburg – made it a full house. As The Scotsman noted with reference to the Perth side, in what was their first European campaign, it was a “majestic display of non-stop attacking football”. It was also a glory night – or at least two nights, Rangers had beaten French side Stade Rennais the previous evening – for Scottish football.

What are the chances of this happening this week? Five wins are not required for all five teams to qualify – only Motherwell definitely require a victory within 90 minutes. What, then, are the chances of all five teams reaching league phase European football? Noon rattles some keys on his laptop and then provides the answer: 360-1. “Because we have had this conversation, I need to put a couple of quid on!” he says. “In case my other half reads this and asks why not!”

The blank weekend for Scotland’s European representatives is not a guarantee of anything. It might merely facilitate success. Nevertheless, Noon welcomes the new rule, which was introduced by the SPFL in April last year.

“Nowadays, with the amount of preparation that needs to go into games, I think it is a great rule change,” he says. “If it results in three or four teams winning a tie, by virtue of having an extra day’s preparation, it will go down as being a forward-thinking improvement for Scottish football, which will have everyone asking, what’s next? How can we now improve the Scottish international team?”