17 games, no defeats in 90 minutes - is Scottish football undergoing a revival?
- Published
In 17 European matches this season, the four clubs representing Scotland remain unbeaten inside 90 minutes.
Nine wins and eight draws have been registered in the qualifying rounds of the Champions League and Europa League in the past few weeks.
Only Aberdeen have gone out of continental competition, but it took Premier League Burnley extra-time to oust Derek McInnes' side from the Europa League.
Celtic, Rangers and Hibernian are all still eyeing the group stage of their respective competitions, with three matches now between them and the guarantee of six more lucrative games.
But what effect have their results this season had? How does it compare to recent campaigns? And what do Scottish clubs have to do to reclaim more European spots?
Scotland 'the third best in Europe'
Scotland sit third, ahead of Germany and Italy
Serbia and Slovakia are the only nations to have outperformed Scotland in Europe so far this season, when it comes to the byzantine world of Uefa coefficient points.
Like Scotland, both the Serbs and Slovaks have three teams left in Europe, but the likes of Red Star Belgrade and Spartak Trnava in the Champions League, and Partizan Belgrade, Spartak Subotica, AS Trencin and Slovan Bratislava in the Europa League, have had fewer draws in their matches.
Indeed, Trencin are on the verge of taking a significant scalp, as they lead former European Cup winners Feyenoord 4-0 after the first leg of their tie, while Bratislava beat Rapid Vienna 2-1 on Thursday.
In the qualifying rounds, countries are awarded one point for a win, and half a point for a draw. That doubles in the group stages, with various bonus points also on offer.
All points that are accumulated by each country are then divided by the number of clubs they had in Europe at the beginning of the season.
The nine wins and seven draws - Aberdeen did not receive any points for the extra-time loss to Burnley - means Scotland have 12.5 points in total, so a coefficient of 3.125.
How have the past few years gone?
Scotland had slipped from 10th place in Uefa's rankings in 2005 to 26th position at the start of this season.
No other nation has dropped so drastically, and it will take more than one promising start to a season to redress that balance. Next year, all three Europa League entrants will likely have to enter in the first qualifying round, with the champions again having to negotiate four qualifying rounds to reach the Champions League group stage.
However, the performances so far this campaign have already moved Scotland up to a provisional 23rd, with Sweden, Poland, Belarus and Serbia in sight. Especially as the Swedes have already lost three of their four entrants.
What needs to happen now?
If Scotland can somehow work its way up to 15th position again, a Premiership club will receive an extra Champions League qualifying place.
Greece finished 15th last season, but Scotland will have to consistently perform well for five consecutive years to catch them - though Hibernian struck an initial blow by knocking out Asteras Tripolis.
For now, Scottish clubs have already outperformed their overall score for the 2015-16 season.
And just five more wins will make this season Scotland's best since 2007-08 - the year Rangers reached the Uefa Cup final and Celtic and Aberdeen were also both still in Europe after Christmas.