James Cairney: Why the Europa Conference League is just what Scottish football needs

This time it’s different, though. With the high heid yins at UEFA launching their latest brainchild, the ECL – a tournament similar in structure to the EL, operating on a tertiary level in the continent’s hierarchy – now up and running, Scottish teams have a better chance than ever of reaching the group stages.

Scotland has four representatives still in Europe and all four have (at the very minimum) a reasonable chance of progression. No team from our shores outwith Glasgow’s big two has reached the group stages of a competition since Aberdeen’s memorable run to the knockout phase of the UEFA Cup in 2007-08, while Motherwell and Hearts were the last teams to reach the play-offs when they did so in 2013.

The Dons and St Johnstone will both fancy their chances in their qualifiers tonight, and the £2.5million on offer for qualification alone would be a sizeable boost to club coffers. For the Old Firm, meanwhile, the ECL represents a handy safety net should the worst happen and they fail to make it through the EL play-offs.

The ECL was designed with nations like ours in mind, so perhaps it’s little surprise that we’re already seeing the benefits. We have meaningful ties involving more of our teams than usual, the big guns have a useful insurance policy, we’re playing teams of a similar stature (which should only help the coefficient, in theory) and there are financial rewards on offer that simply didn’t exist previously.

With this in mind, it’s perhaps time we reassessed our country’s standing in world football, looked in the mirror and laid down some cold, hard truths about our place in the grand scheme of things. By the time next year’s qualifiers roll around it will have been five years since a Scottish team last reached the play-off for the Champions League. Since the UEFA Cup was rebranded as the Europa League in 2010, no Scottish team other than Celtic or Rangers has qualified for the group stages. The Old Firm and Aberdeen are our only clubs to have played group-stage European football.

These aren’t the cheeriest of observations but they point to a simple truth. For the last four years, Celtic haven’t been anywhere good enough to sit at Europe’s top table and when they have, they’ve often been shown up. When Rangers were knocked out by Malmo last week, Steven Gerrard admitted that his team weren’t ready for the Champions League proper. As valiant as St Johnstone’s showing against Galatasaray was in both legs of their Europa League qualifier, they were ultimately outclassed by superior opposition.

It might just be the case that the Europa League is the level for each of the Glasgow giants, and that our other representatives are better suited to the Conference League. Sure, the Old Firm should aspire to mix it with the big boys and the others should be aiming high, but there is no shame in admitting that other, better financed leagues have outstripped our own game.

That’s certainly what the European Club Index (ECI) suggests. There are the usual caveats attached – it’s an imperfect science, they’re more representative than literal – but they do give an indication of each club’s strengths relative to one another, regardless of where they play, and rank every top-flight team in Europe. And the implication is that this is our level.

When Celtic (91) were knocked out by Midtjylland (102), the ECI said that they were defeated by a team of largely the same calibre. It happens. They went on to breeze past Jablonec (158) and now have a first-leg advantage against AZ Alkmaar (76). In other words, they’ve performed largely as you’d expect.

The same is true with Rangers (71), albeit to a lesser extent. Their Champions League exit to Malmo (108) will rightly sting but when they should have very little to worry about when they come up against Alashkert (497) this evening. But the defeat to the Swedish champions did put Celtic’s continental capers in recent years into perspective.

Hibernian’s (254) European run was brought to a close when they were eliminated by Rijeka (149) while Aberdeen (228) should be in for an intriguing clash in Baku against Qarabag (213) after a relatively easy time of it so far. St Johnstone’s (312) defeat to Galatasaray (83) should come as little surprise and the ECI suggests that tonight’s clash with LASK (112) will be another big ask.

Of the six teams still involved in the champions’ path in the preliminary rounds of the Champions League – by far the most accommodating route for a Scottish team – have an ECI ranking significantly higher than Celtic and Rangers. It’s luck of the draw – sometimes the Glasgow clubs will face someone around their level, and others they’ll be left with a mountain to climb.

It’s a similar story in the ECL. Of the 34 teams in the play-off round, only three are ranked lower than Aberdeen (Scotland’s third-highest team) in the ECI rankings – Shakhter Karagandy of Uzbekistan (429), Finland’s KuPS (278) and Cypriot side Anthorsis Famagusta (256). The majority are within the top 150, as will be most of the sides that drop down from the Europa League.

Recent history and the ECI both suggest that Scottish teams must accept their new standing within European football. Celtic and Rangers are correct to aim for the Champions League each season but failure to do so shouldn’t be branded a disaster in and of itself.

It’s also hard to escape the fact that it’s been a long time since any of our other teams came close to reaching the Europa League. We’d gone the best part of a decade with none of them playing a truly meaningful qualifier and with the introduction of the ECL, now we have two.

Maybe the Old Firm are better suited to the Europa League. Maybe our other teams are better suited to the ECL. But one thing is for sure – UEFA’s new tournament is already showing its value to Scottish football. It’s given the likes of St Johnstone and Aberdeen exciting opportunities that never previously existed but more importantly, it’s given them a reasonable chance of winning. And Scottish football could really use that.