Poland faced set-backs in the UEFA country ranking on Tuesday after Sparta Prague beat Olympique Lyon 2-1 in Champions League qualifying. Poland finished the 2025/26 season in 12th place and aims to reach 10th position this season, which would grant its national champion direct entry into the Champions League. Poland main rivals in this campaign are Turkey, Czechia and Greece.
Tuesday third qualifying round action featured home matches for Sparta Prague against Olympique Lyon and Olympiakos against NEC Nijmegen. Sparta Prague secured an unexpected victory despite falling behind. Jonathan Brunes had a 19th-minute strike ruled out for offside before Martin Suchomel scored an own goal in the 45th minute to give Lyon a 0-1 lead at the break.
Sparta Prague had another goal disallowed in the 57th minute before staging a decisive comeback between the 63rd and 69th minutes. Matej Rynes scored the equalizer for the hosts. Corentin Tolisso then missed a 67th-minute penalty for Lyon, and John Mercado scored shortly after to seal a 2-1 victory for Sparta Prague. Meanwhile, Olympiakos played out a goalless 0-0 draw against NEC Nijmegen.
UEFA country ranking standings
The results impacted the country ranking standings. Czechia earned 0.200 points, reducing their deficit to Poland by one-third to 0.400 points. Greece added 0.100 points for the Olympiakos draw and trail Poland by 1.813 points. Poland currently trail ninth-placed Turkey by 2.950 points. Turkey have already lost one club after Basaksehir suffered an unexpected elimination against Finnish side Inter Turku following a 1-1 draw and a 0-2 loss.
The UEFA country ranking after Tuesday European cup matches stands as follows:
- 1. England: 98.519 points (9/9 clubs remaining)
- 2. Italy: 84.232 points (7/7 clubs remaining)
- 3. Spain: 78.618 points (8/8 clubs remaining)
- 4. Germany: 76.688 points (7/7 clubs remaining)
- 5. France: 65.082 points (7/7 clubs remaining)
- 8. Netherlands: 49.229 points (6/6 clubs remaining)
- 9. Turkey: 45.975 points (4/5 clubs remaining)
- 10. Poland: 43.025 points (5/5 clubs remaining)
- 11. Czechia: 42.625 points (5/5 clubs remaining)
- 12. Greece: 41.212 points (5/5 clubs remaining)
- 13. Denmark: 35.181 points (4/4 clubs remaining)
- 14. Norway: 34.012 points (5/5 clubs remaining)
- 15. Cyprus: 32.818 points (3/4 clubs remaining)
Upcoming European matches for Polish clubs
Polish clubs begin their point-scoring attempts this week on Wednesday when Gornik Zabrze host Ferencvaros at 20:15 in the Europa League. Four more Polish sides compete on Thursday across two European competitions.
In the Europa League on Thursday, Jagiellonia Bialystok play Rangers at 18:00 and Lech Poznan face KI Klaksvik at 19:00. In the Conference League, Rakow Czestochowa take on Hammarby at 19:00 and GKS Katowice play Hapoel Tel Aviv at 20:00.
