{"id":2262,"date":"2026-05-04T01:11:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T01:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/?p=2262"},"modified":"2026-05-04T01:11:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T01:11:20","slug":"premier-league-european-race-the-battle-for-sixth-and-why-teams-might-need-to-lose-on-final-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/?p=2262","title":{"rendered":"Premier League European race: The battle for sixth &#8211; and why teams might need to lose on final day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Both elements needed for sixth place to be a Champions League spot seem quite plausible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Aston Villa would need to finish in fifth spot exactly (where they currently reside) and win the Europa League.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They trail Nottingham Forest 1-0 after the semi-final first leg, but are at home for Thursday&#8217;s return leg.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This scenario will only play out if Villa finish fifth &#8211; and not in the top four (or below fifth) &#8211; because of a quirk in Uefa&#8217;s rules.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Premier League landed a fifth Champions League place because of English teams&#8217; performances in Europe &#8211; something called the European Performance Spot (EPS).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In short, when it comes to dishing out European spots, Uefa goes by domestic positions and who won the European trophies first, before factoring in the EPS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">So if Villa win the Europa League and finish fifth, that EPS spot would be passed down to the team in sixth &#8211; who would qualify for the Champions League.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, if Villa finish in the top four then winning the Europa League would make no difference to any other English teams. In this situation the sixth-placed finisher would qualify for the Europa League.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Both elements needed for sixth place to be a Champions League spot seem quite plausible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}