Historic rise to 15th place in the UEFA rankings

Always growing and always evolving! This has been the paradigm of Benfica's women's football team, which on Monday, October 30, climbed to 15th place in the UEFA club ranking, thus confirming the sustained path it has been following.

Benfica have jumped from 23rd place at the end of the 2022/23 season to 15th, with a coefficient of 22,000 points. Rosengard, the eagles' opponents in Group A of the group stage of the current edition of the UEFA Women's Champions League, are in 14th place, with a coefficient of 23,000 points. The Reds are 5,000 points off the top 10, the last place of which is occupied by Real Madrid. 

Until Benfica's participation, no Portuguese team had been among the top 16 European teams in any format of the competition. Benfica have achieved this in the last three years (2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24). And one of the signs of this progress is the total score.

A raiz da escalada remonta a 2020/21, The roots of the climb go back to 2020/21, the season in which the Inspiradoras made their first appearance in the women's Champions League: they eliminated PAOK (Greece) - after which they were ranked 94th... - and Anderlecht (Belgium) in the first and second qualifying rounds. That season, they only succumbed to Chelsea in the last 32 of the competition (the English team would go on to be finalists, beaten by Barcelona).

In 2021/22, as they made their debut in the group stage (in the new competition format), the Eagles picked up three points, which they added to with two wins against Rosengard in 2022/23. This was reflected in the UEFA rankings. In other words, from 70th place in 2020/21, Benfica jumped to 37th in 2021/22. The rise was even more marked in 2022/23, with the 23rd place obtained.

And if Portugal will be entitled to the presence of the 1st and 2nd-placed teams from the current edition of the Liga BPI in the 2024/25 Champions League, Benfica's strong and effective contribution to this new reality should be highlighted.