Now that we played our last European match this season it's time for a recap.
We had a rough time in group stage with the two losses against Quarabag, but made up for it with the good results against Slovan Liberec and most importantly against Fiorentina. In the end we managed to reach our European goal for this season, which was qualifying to the Round of 32. If we were little bit luckier in the draw by avoiding Schalke, we could dream of going even further. I would say that our European campaign was very good.
Now looking to the future.
After today's tie we have accumulated 34.960 points (this can increase if Olympiakos ties or wins in Turkey tomorrow) in the UEFA Team Rankings. We are ranked 57th for the upcoming European season. Unfortunately we could not maintain the level from previous rankings (37.440 points), since we lost the points (11.520) from the very good 2011-2012 season. Even then we should still be seeded in the EL draws, but probably not in the CL qualifying draws. The good thing is that next season we will drop the very poor 2012-2013 season by dropping the measly 2.380 points from our standings.
Our goal for next season should be by winning the playoffs and once again give it a try to finally reach the CL group stage. This will not be easy. On top of that UEFA is changing the qualification process next season to complicate things even further.