European week 1, 2026/27: England win all five, a record ten points
England’s five Champions League clubs all won on the opening matchday of 2026/27, ten points to the association and the most any country has taken from a first Champions League matchday since group play began in 1992/93. Nobody moved in the ranking, but Germany closed on Spain and Greece on Czechia. The first of a series, one after every European week.
The Champions League group stage opened on 8, 9 and 10 September with 18 matches, and England won five of them: every one its clubs played. Ten points went on the association’s season, its total rose from 102.019 to 103.130, and its lead over Italy at the top of the table stands at 14.827. No association changed place in the week, which is what a first matchday usually does to a five-season table. The gaps moved instead: Germany is 1.984 behind Spain for third, Greece 0.513 behind Czechia for 11th, and Azerbaijan one draw from passing Israel.
Five wins from five
Aston Villa won 3:2 at Club Brugge and Manchester City 2:0 at Porto on the Tuesday. Arsenal won 1:0 at Napoli and Liverpool beat Atlético Madrid 2:1 on the Wednesday, and on the Thursday Manchester United beat Sabah 4:0. Three of the five were away, and two were against clubs from Italy and Spain, the associations ranked second and third.
Ten points from the opening matchday is the most any association has taken since the group stage was introduced in 1992/93. England held the previous mark too: nine in 2017/18, from four wins and a draw by five clubs. Five clubs from one association had never all won on the first matchday; four from four had happened four times, by Spain in 2002/03, Italy in 2003/04 and 2005/06, and England in 2009/10. England entered nine clubs this season, so each win is worth 0.222 on its season coefficient, which went from 3.500 to 4.611 in three days.
Third place, and the 1.984 between Spain and Germany
Spain took six points from five matches: Real Madrid beat Inter Milan 2:1, Real Betis won 3:2 at Lille and Barcelona beat Feyenoord 5:1, while Villarreal lost 2:3 at Dortmund and Atlético Madrid lost at Liverpool. Germany took the same six from four: Borussia Dortmund beat Villarreal, VfB Stuttgart beat Viking 3:1 and Bayern Munich beat Bodø/Glimt 5:0, and only RB Leipzig lost, 1:4 at Como. Germany entered seven clubs to Spain’s eight, so its wins are worth more, 0.286 against 0.250, and the gap between third and fourth closed from 2.091 to 1.984.
Italy, second, took three points from four matches. Como, in its first European season, beat RB Leipzig 4:1 with a club coefficient of 19.989 against Leipzig’s 61.000, the biggest gap in coefficient overturned in the round. Roma drew 1:1 at Fenerbahçe; Inter Milan lost 1:2 at Real Madrid and Napoli 0:1 at home to Arsenal. France took four, from Paris Saint-Germain’s 6:1 against Slovan Bratislava and Lens’s 3:2 at Slavia Prague, with Lille beaten by Betis.
Results, 8 September 2026 to 10 September 2026
points by association| Country | Rank | Played | Points | Season coeff. | Five-season total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 England | 1 | 5 | 10.000 | 7.055 | 105.574 |
 Spain | 3 | 5 | 6.000 | 6.250 | 84.868 |
 Germany | 4 | 4 | 6.000 | 6.571 | 83.259 |
 France | 5 | 3 | 4.000 | 5.500 | 70.582 |
 Italy | 2 | 4 | 3.000 | 5.785 | 90.017 |
 Portugal | 6 | 2 | 2.000 | 6.300 | 66.550 |
 Greece | 10 | 1 | 2.000 | 5.400 | 45.812 |
 Netherlands | 8 | 2 | 1.000 | 5.333 | 54.062 |
 Türkiye | 9 | 2 | 1.000 | 6.100 | 51.275 |
 Ukraine | 23 | 1 | 1.000 | 3.125 | 24.837 |
 Norway | 13 | 2 | 0.000 | 6.200 | 39.812 |
 Austria | 18 | 1 | 0.000 | 4.800 | 28.250 |
 Azerbaijan | 24 | 1 | 0.000 | 5.625 | 24.187 |
 Belgium | 7 | 1 | 0.000 | 5.200 | 60.850 |
 Czechia | 11 | 1 | 0.000 | 3.700 | 45.525 |
 Slovakia | 27 | 1 | 0.000 | 4.125 | 22.375 |
Six associations with nothing
Sixteen associations had a club on the pitch and six of them earned nothing. Norway had two clubs in the round and lost both matches, Viking 1:3 at Stuttgart and Bodø/Glimt 0:5 at Bayern. Slovan Bratislava conceded six in Paris, Sabah four in Manchester on its group stage debut, Slavia Prague lost at home to Lens, Club Brugge at home to Aston Villa and LASK 0:1 at AEK Athens. That last result gave Greece the two points that count for most further down the table: with five clubs entered, a win is worth 0.400 to Greece, near twice what it is to England.
The three draws gave a point to each side: PSV Eindhoven and Shakhtar Donetsk, Fenerbahçe and Roma. The Netherlands and Türkiye each had a second club lose, Feyenoord 1:5 at Barcelona and Galatasaray 1:3 at Sporting CP, so both ended the week on one point, as did Ukraine, for which Shakhtar is the one club still playing.
The places within reach
Greece is 12th on 44.212, 0.513 behind Czechia, and the two look alike: five clubs entered, one still in the Champions League, two in the Europa League and one in the Conference League, so a win moves either by 0.400. Poland, 10th on 45.125, has two clubs in the Europa League and nothing above it. Further down, Romania in 22nd, Ukraine in 23rd, Israel in 24th and Azerbaijan in 25th are 1.188 apart and each has one club left. Ukraine is 0.538 behind Romania with a win worth 0.500 to it; Azerbaijan is 0.188 behind Israel, and one draw by Sabah, worth 0.250, would take it past. Sabah’s road to the group stage is the subject of an earlier story.
Coefficients 2026/27
top 25 of 55| # | Country | Five-season total | Season |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | England | 105.574 | 7.055 |
| 2 | Italy | 90.017 | 5.785 |
| 3 | Spain | 84.868 | 6.250 |
| 4 | Germany | 83.259 | 6.571 |
| 5 | France | 70.582 | 5.500 |
| 6 | Portugal | 66.550 | 6.300 |
| 7 | Belgium | 60.850 | 5.200 |
| 8 | Netherlands | 54.062 | 5.333 |
| 9 | Türkiye | 51.275 | 6.100 |
| 10 ▲2 | Greece | 45.812 | 5.400 |
| 11 | Czechia | 45.525 | 3.700 |
| 12 ▼2 |  Poland | 45.525 | 3.400 |
| 13 ▲1 | Norway | 39.812 | 6.200 |
| 14 ▼1 |  Denmark | 39.306 | 5.000 |
| 15 |  Cyprus | 35.193 | 3.625 |
| 16 |  Switzerland | 30.700 | 3.750 |
| 17 ▲1 |  Hungary | 28.312 | 3.875 |
| 18 ▲2 | Austria | 28.250 | 4.800 |
| 19 ▲3 |  Croatia | 26.906 | 4.750 |
| 20 ▼1 |  Scotland | 26.450 | 2.300 |
| 21 ▼4 |  Sweden | 26.250 | 1.750 |
| 22 ▼1 |  Romania | 25.125 | 2.125 |
| 23 | Ukraine | 24.837 | 3.125 |
| 24 ▲2 | Azerbaijan | 24.187 | 5.625 |
| 25 |  Israel | 24.125 | 3.375 |
Next week
The Europa League group stage opens on 16 and 17 September. Among its fixtures: AC Milan against Benfica, Sunderland, in Europe for the first time since 1973/74, against AZ Alkmaar, Juventus against NEC Nijmegen, and Olympiacos at home to Jagiellonia Białystok, one of the two Polish clubs that Czechia and Greece are chasing. The next of these articles follows that week.
Reading the numbers
Everything here is as the table stood on 10 September 2026, after the first Champions League matchday of 2026/27 and before the Europa League and Conference League had begun; the ranking is provisional until May. A group stage win is worth two points to the association and a draw one, divided by the number of clubs it entered, which is why the same result is worth 0.222 to England and 0.500 to Ukraine. The record above compares opening matchdays of the Champions League group stage since 1992/93 and counts points, not places: the field has been 36 clubs since 2024/25 and England has entered five or six of them, so the ten points say as much about how many clubs England sends as about how they played. The 2026/27 table and the club pages linked above carry the full figures.