Opinion: What on earth is happening with Scottish football?
European qualifiers have now concluded, and we now know the opponents each outfit will face in all three European competitions.
We have incredible stories with the likes of Lincoln Red Imps from Gibraltar reaching the UEFA Conference League group stage alongside Pafos and Kairat Almaty reaching the Champions League.
Yet, we have seen some disappointing exits from the qualifiers and in particular, Scottish football has seen a potential five European teams drop to only three, with no representative in the Champions League.
Here, Sports News Blitz’s Samuel Leasley explores what is going wrong in Scottish football and how the Scottish coefficient rank is now in jeopardy following underperformances.
The Rangers meltdown continues
The Gers were handed an incredibly difficult run in the Champions League qualifiers yet this remains no excuse for their complete capitulation at the hands of Club Brugge in the play off.
Russell Martin witnessed his side collapse in 20 minutes at Ibrox against the Belgian outfit before limping to an embarrassing 9-1 aggregate defeat after six unanswered goals flew past Jack Butland in the away leg.
Rangers are yet to win a match in the Scottish top flight this season, and murmurs of discontent are brewing between Martin and James Tavernier, which could spell the end for the ex-Southampton boss already.
The Gers have been granted the kindest draw of the three Scottish outfits still in Europe, but face a large task to take points off Roma, Porto and Braga whilst in their current state.
Celtic pay the penalty against Champions League new boys
Despite having 22 efforts on goal across 210 minutes of football, Celtic failed to break down a stubborn Kairat Almaty side and bowed out of the Champions League on penalties.
Daizen Maeda missed a glorious chance away in Kazakhstan to win the tie and then had his penalty saved, condemning Celtic to the Europa League.
Whilst dropping into the secondary competition could prove a strong chance to push the Scottish coefficient up, the Hoops have been dealt an incredibly difficult run of fixtures.
The club travel to Red Star Belgrade, Bologna, Feyenoord and Midtjylland and welcome Roma, Braga, Sturm Graz and Utrecht to Celtic Park.
Aberdeen dealt blow by controversial penalty in Romania
Alexander Jensen was penalised for an extremely harsh handball on the stroke of half-time, resulting in both a penalty and a red card for the Dons defender.
This effectively decided the tie in Bucharest as FCSB scored two more goals in the second half to demote Aberdeen to the Conference League.
With Hibernian suffering a heartbreaking extra-time defeat in Warsaw, Aberdeen are the only Scottish team in the Conference League and face a tough task to qualify for the knockout stages.
The Dons welcome Shakhtar Donetsk, AEK Larnaca and Strasbourg to Pittodrie whilst travelling to Sparta Prague, AEK Athens and Noah in the league phase.
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Can the Scottish coefficient recover from defeat?
Scotland sits currently 18th in the UEFA coefficient charts, yet trails all nations above them currently in points accumulated this season.
If Scotland is to maintain their current qualification places, they must outperform the likes of Sweden, Israel, Romania and Croatia, three of whom have two sides qualified to a league phase.
With the difficulty of the drawn fixtures for all three outfits, it is a tough ask for the clubs to boost their ranking.
However, as last season’s performances showcased, there is plenty of quality within Scottish football and no team should be written off whilst performing on a European stage.
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