The race for five places in next season's Champions League - ESPN

Two leagues will be rewarded with an extra place in next season's UEFA Champions League (UCL) based on performance in Europe this season.

Last season, Borussia Dortmund of the German Bundesliga and Bologna from Italian Serie A were the lucky recipients, with clubs in Germany and Italy outperforming those from England, France and Spain.

Now we've moving into the knockout rounds of the UCL, UEFA Europa League (UEL) and UEFA Conference League (UCoL) we're starting to get a clearer picture of the race this year.

The English Premier League is in a very dominant position but we're a long way from finding out who will get the two spots.

Here's how it works, and where all the leagues stand.

It's about the collective performance of all teams from each country taking part in Europe this season. The two leagues with the best average coefficient scores get an extra place.

Regardless of competition, each win is worth two coefficient points, a draw gets you one point, and you get nothing for a defeat.

If a match goes to extra time, the score after 120 minutes is used. So, penalties are not taken into account if the game is drawn, as they are used to determine the tie rather than the individual match.

The points gained by all clubs are added together, and that total score is divided by the number of clubs a country has in Europe in the season. That gives the coefficient average. For example, if a country has 60 coefficient points and seven teams in Europe, its score is 8.571 for the table (60 / 7).

The additional place goes to the first team in the league table outside the UCL places. So, in the Premier League it would go to fifth. It's a place on top of the regular allocation, so if a league usually has seven places in Europe, it will