At the end of 2022-23 Poland were 24th in the UEFA country ranking. Today they are 10th, one place above Czechia and two above Greece. It is the highest point yet of a climb that has gone 24th, 21st, 15th, 12th and now 10th, and it has arrived at an awkward moment. Three of Poland's five clubs are already out of Europe for the season. The two countries directly behind them still have four clubs each.
Twenty-fourth to tenth
The climb was built one season at a time: 7.750 in 2022-23, 6.875 in 2023-24, then 11.750 and 15.750. That last figure was the seventh-best return of any country in Europe in 2025-26, ahead of Greece (14.200, eighth) and a long way ahead of Czechia (11.025, thirteenth). All of it came from the Conference League. Raków Częstochowa, Lech Poznań, Jagiellonia Białystok and Legia Warsaw all reached its league phase and collected 63 points between them.
- 2022-2324thSeason score 7.750
- 2023-2421stSeason score 6.875
- 2024-2515thSeason score 11.750
- 2025-2612thSeason score 15.750, the seventh-best in Europe
- 2026-2710th, for nowSeason score so far 3.000
How Czechia slipped
Czechia's story is not a collapse. It is a plateau. After a big 2023-24 (13.500) their returns settled at 10.550 and 11.025. Those were solid seasons, 14th and 13th in Europe, but Poland and Greece were accelerating past them. Czechia were ninth at the end of 2024-25, tenth at the end of 2025-26, and are eleventh today.
The overtaking itself happened before a ball was kicked. Every summer the oldest season falls out of the five-year window, and this summer that was 2021-22: a good year for Czechia and Greece, a thin one for Poland. Czechia lost 6.700 points, Greece 8.000 and Poland only 4.625. When the new window opened Poland were already ahead, on 42.125 against Czechia's 41.825 and Greece's 40.412.
Grécia
Dinamarca
Noruega
Chéquia
PolóniaThe shorter the bar, the less a country lost when 2021-22 dropped out. Poland lost the least of the five.
Three out before the league phase
Then the qualifying rounds went badly. Raków went out in the Conference League play-off to Hajduk Split, 4-5 on aggregate. GKS Katowice fell to Hapoel Tel Aviv. Górnik Zabrze were knocked out of three competitions in a row, by Fenerbahçe in the Champions League, Ferencváros in the Europa League and Monaco in the Conference League, without winning a match. Only two Polish clubs reached a league phase, and both are in the Europa League. Lech Poznań went out of Champions League qualifying against AGF and rebuilt their summer through the Europa League route. Jagiellonia Białystok beat Rangers and Iberia 1999 to get there.
That matters because of how the coefficient is built. A country's season score is the points its clubs earn divided by the number of clubs it entered, and the clubs that are out still count. Poland's divisor stays at five all season. Every point Lech and Jagiellonia win is worth 0.2 to Poland, exactly what a point is worth to Czechia or Greece. Poland simply have fewer clubs left to earn them.
The real gap is 0.4
On this site's ranking table Poland look 1.6 points clear of Czechia. That main column holds this season's league-phase bonuses back until the league phase ends, and shows them in brackets beside it. But a bonus cannot be lost once it has been earned. Slavia Praha's six points for reaching the Champions League league phase already belong to Czechia, worth 1.2 on the coefficient whatever Slavia do next. AEK Athens' six points already belong to Greece.
Count them and the order stays the same, but the margins shrink: Poland 45.125, Czechia 44.725, Greece 44.212. In mid-August the gap to Czechia was a tenth of a point. Now it is 0.400, which is exactly one win. The gap to Greece is 0.913, a little over two wins. Ninth-placed Türkiye are 4.750 ahead, so Poland are defending, not chasing.
TurquiaPolóniaChéquiaGréciaNoruegaDinamarca
ChipreNorway move above Denmark once the Champions League bonuses of Bodø/Glimt and Viking are counted.
Sixteen matches against twenty-nine
All three countries entered five clubs, so a win is worth 0.4 and a draw 0.2 to each of them. What differs is the number of chances. Lech and Jagiellonia have eight Europa League matches each. Czechia have Slavia in the Champions League, Sparta Praha and Viktoria Plzeň in the Europa League and FK Jablonec in the Conference League. Greece have AEK, Olympiakos, OFI Heraklion and Panathinaikos spread across the three competitions in the same way.
ChéquiaGréciaNoruegaDinamarcaPolóniaDenmark entered four clubs, not five, so every Danish point is worth 0.25 rather than 0.2.
Suppose every club still in Europe takes one point a game from here, a win every other match. That is roughly what clubs from these five countries have averaged outside qualifying over the last two seasons. Poland would gain 3.2, Czechia and Greece 5.8 each, and the table in May would read:
- 10th · Czechia · 50.525
- 11th · Greece · 50.012
- 12th · Poland · 48.325
- 13th · Denmark · 44.306
- 14th · Norway · 44.212
Poland would finish twelfth. To stay level with Czechia at that rate, Lech and Jagiellonia would need 27 points from their 16 matches: 1.7 a game, the equivalent of twelve wins and three draws between them. Polish clubs took 1.23 points a game outside qualifying in 2024-25 and 1.13 in 2025-26, and that was in the Conference League. This season's Europa League draw has put Crystal Palace, Sunderland, Bayer Leverkusen, Benfica and Lyon in their way.
Change the assumption and the answer holds. Give every country its own form from the last two seasons (Czech clubs 0.81 points a game, Greek clubs 1.04, Polish clubs 1.17) and Poland still end up twelfth, on 48.858 against Czechia's 49.448 and Greece's 50.254. Both projections count league-phase matches only. Knockout rounds and ranking bonuses come on top, and both favour the country with more clubs still playing.
Three nights that move the gap by a whole win
There is one way to close the gap faster than the fixture count allows: beat the rivals directly. When a Polish club beats a Greek or Czech one, Poland gain 0.4 and the rival gains nothing. Poland have three of those meetings, and the first comes on 16 September.
All three are away from home for the Polish side.
The last two fall on the same night, the final round of the Europa League league phase. Unless Lech or Jagiellonia go through to the knockouts, those will be Poland's last two matches of the season.
What is actually at stake
Not a Champions League place, at least not directly. Under the current access list structure, seventh to fifteenth in this ranking all carry two Champions League entrants, so tenth and twelfth send the same number. What changes inside that band is where the clubs start: the higher the association, the fewer qualifying rounds its clubs have to survive. This table closes in May and fixes the access list for 2028-29. The band itself is safe for Poland. Fifteenth-placed Cyprus are eleven points behind.
Greece and Norway are the ones scoring
Of the countries around Poland, the fastest scorer this season is Norway. Its 5.000 is the second-highest season total in Europe so far, behind only Azerbaijan. Bodø/Glimt knocked out Union Saint-Gilloise and NEC Nijmegen, Viking beat Dinamo Zagreb, and both reached the Champions League league phase. That is twelve bonus points, 2.4 on the coefficient, banked before either had played a league-phase match. Both then lost their openers. Brann are in the Conference League after beating PAOK, and Lillestrøm are in the Europa League.
Greece's 3.800 ranks 13th. AEK Athens beat Levski Sofia to reach the Champions League and won their first league-phase match 1-0 against LASK. Olympiakos dropped into the Europa League after losing to NEC, and OFI Heraklion joined them there. Panathinaikos reached the Conference League by knocking out a Czech club, Hradec Králové. Greece also have the strongest recent run of the three: 11.400, 12.687 and 14.200 in the last three seasons.
NoruegaDinamarcaGréciaPolóniaChéquiaThese figures include Champions League bonuses already earned: 2.4 for Norway, 1.2 each for Greece and Czechia, none for Poland or Denmark.
Take those bonuses out and Poland's 3.000 is ahead of Greece and Norway, both on 2.600. Polish clubs won plenty of qualifying matches this summer. Too few of them survived to keep winning.
Denmark are the other half of the chasing pack. All four Danish clubs are still alive, all in the Conference League, and because Denmark entered four clubs rather than five, every Danish point is worth 0.25. Still, neither Denmark nor Norway threatens Poland this season. They are 6.8 and 6.5 points back, and closing that in a single season would take something close to a perfect autumn.
Next summer is the harder test
Even if Poland hold on until May, the window moves again. Next summer 2022-23 drops out, and it was Greece's worst season of the five, at 2.125. Poland lose 7.750 and Czechia 6.750. Take 2022-23 out of today's figures and the order is already different.
GréciaChéquiaPolóniaNoruegaDinamarcaWhat each country carries into 2027-28, before this season's remaining matches are played.
So the question in the title has two answers. This season, Poland keep tenth only if two clubs clearly outscore four and the three direct meetings go their way. Next season they start 4.7 points behind Greece and 0.6 behind Czechia, with Norway and Denmark four and a half to five points back. The climb from 24th to 10th was built on four good seasons. Staying there needs a fifth, and more than two clubs to earn it.
Figures as of 11 September 2026, from this site's coefficient database and checked against kassiesa.net. Five-year totals cover 2022-23 to 2026-27 and include league-phase bonuses already earned. Match counts are league-phase fixtures still to be played. Points-per-game figures count every match outside qualifying in 2024-25 and 2025-26. Projections are plain arithmetic (a win 2, a draw 1, divided by each country's number of entrants) and leave out ranking bonuses and knockout rounds.