additional Champions League ticket Netherlands in 2024

It was already looking good after Feyenoord’s win over AS Roma and it is certain after Sporting CP’s 1-0 defeat against Juventus: based on the UEFA coefficient list, the Netherlands can count on two direct Champions League starting points from the 2024/2025 season.

That means that next season, for the first time in 21 years, the Netherlands will compete for a total of three Champions League tickets. After all, the number three of the 2023/2024 premier league season will advance to the third preliminary round of the billion-dollar ball.

This season in the premier league, only first (group stage) and second place (preliminary rounds) entitle the Netherlands to Champions League soccer. The extra ticket is in, as the Netherlands has now definitively taken over sixth place on the coefficient list from Portugal.

Check out the current UEFA coefficient list standings below. The first four get four direct starting tickets to the Champions League main tournament. Numbers 5 and 6 get two direct places and a spot in the preliminary rounds.

The last season in which the premier league received three starting tickets for (the preliminary round of) the Champions League was the 2001/2002 season, 21 years ago.

Ajax then automatically qualified as champions, PSV as number two. Feyenoord finished third and had to play in the preliminary round the following season. Through there, the Rotterdammers also qualified for the main tournament.

This makes the 2002/2003 season (for now) the last season in which the Netherlands had three representatives in the main tournament.

With Thursday night’s results (Feyenoord’s victory and Sporting’s defeat), Portugal can no longer catch up with the Netherlands, even though AZ lost 2-0 to Anderlecht in the Conference League.

Benfica’s defeat in last Tuesday’s Champions League quarterfinal match against Internazionale also benefited Dutch soccer.

UEFA’s much-discussed coefficient list distributes tickets for European soccer among all countries based on the performance of clubs over the past five years. Not so long ago, a glance at that list made the Dutch soccer fan especially sad. In 2018, the Netherlands ranked only 14th.

Thanks in part to some recent successes, such as Ajax’s strong Champions League campaign in 2018/2019 and Feyenoord’s Conference League final berth in 2022, the Netherlands has been on the rise in recent years.

Watch an explainer video on the coefficient issue (from December 2021).