Which league dominates the UEFA Champions League?

Themba Sweet analyses who has been dominating the Champions League.

Last season I noticed an increasing feeling on social media platforms and amongst the tv pundits, that La Liga is the best performing league playing in the UEFA Champions League. Now in the past few years with Barcelona dominating, it can be understood. Yet if you took a look at Real Madrid’s past few years in the UCL, you’d notice that they were rather disappointing. I decided to go back into the record books and see which league really does dominate the Champions League.

As a kid growing up in the early 90’s, Serie A was the dominant force in Europe. It was clear to see in this competition too, with a Serie A club involved in every final for 7 straight years: 1992-1998.

Although the Champions League was rebranded in 1992, it didn’t resemble the current tournament until the 1997-98 season. This was the first season where teams could enter the UCL without the need to win their league.  In my research I aim to see which league is consistently in the final KO rounds of the UCL and if 1 league has more than 1 team, they get more than 1 point. So to keep everything as fair as possible, here were my guidelines for this test:

• I’ve taken the date range from 1997/98 – 2011/12
• I consider teams in the QF stage and onwards only (final KO rounds)
• 1 point per team
• I’ve only taken into account the top leagues:
• EPL, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, Primeira Liga, Eredevisie

Quarter-final stage

So let’s see who really does dominate the Champions League as we know it. The consensus seems to be La Liga, but let’s see who’s dominated the past 15 years of the QF stage:Over the past 15 seasons, the English Premier League has been an ever-present in the quarter-final stage. Aside from that, they’ve made a total of 32 appearances at this stage. This is more important since it is a reflection of the strength of the league. An example is the 2007/08 & 2008/09 seasons which both had 4 EPL teams reach the QF stage. That’s 8 appearances in the QF over 2 years for the EPL. No other league has had 4 teams from their league in the QF at this stage, yet the EPL managed it in 2 consecutive seasons. La Liga trails in this regard with 27 appearances over 15 seasons.

Semi-final stage

It has to be said that the QF stage of the Champions League has been dominated by the EPL teams for nearly 2 decades, but if we think about the Semi-Finals over the past few years, one team springs to mind – Barcelona. An ever-present for half a decade in the semi’s, and possibly the main reason many believe La Liga to be stronger in Europe. It’s quite true though. The last time Barca failed to reach the SF stage was 6 seasons back. They are clearly the best team in Europe based on UEFA coefficients. But what about the rest of La Liga?

Even though the past 6 seasons saw 11 appearances by EPL teams in the semi’s against the 9 from La Liga, the Spanish league pips the Premier League since the EPL made most of their SF appearances in the past few years. 

One of the most striking facts one can take from this table is the gulf between the EPL/La Liga teams when compared against the rest of the European Leagues. None of the other leagues have made 10 appearances at this stage, yet the EPL & La Liga might make their 19^th & 20^th appearance this season if more than 1 team reaches the SF. It speaks volumes as to why many foreign players are choosing the EPL & La Liga over Bundesliga & especially Serie A. There seems to be more chance of glory in those 2 leagues.

Having said that, there has been a Bundesliga team in the semi’s for the past 3 seasons. Italy’s last appearance in the semi’s – 2009/10. In fact, out of the past 15 seasons, a Serie A team has only been present in 7 of those 15 tournaments at this stage. And what of the Eredivisie? 1 appearance in the semi’s in 15 seasons? It’s little wonder that the youth of Ajax choose to move to the giants of Europe.

Of all of these numbers & figures, the 3 year stretch by the EPL between 2006 & 2009, has to be the most impressive. 3 EPL teams reached the semi’s 3 years in a row. 9 appearances in 3 seasons.

La Liga takes the prize for the best semi-finalists, edging out the EPL for now at least.

Finals

It’s very easy to count who has won the most titles over 15 years, but dominance doesn’t always result in titles. Chelsea vs Barcelona/Bayern last season. The dominant team didn’t win. Simply reaching the finals is a massive achievement. Things can go wrong within the game, but reaching the final is no accident. Having said that, which league has had the most appearances in the Final since 1997/98?

The EPL slightly edges La Liga, having made 9 appearances in the finals over 15 years. The graph roughly states that there’s currently over a 50% chance that a team from the EPL will reach the finals. However, if you look at their run before 2004, you’ll notice the stark contrast. Simply 1 final before 2004 – the famous 1999 victory from Manchester United. It clearly shows how far the EPL has come over the past decade. Over the past 8 seasons, there have been 8 appearances in the finals by an EPL team. That is ridiculously good. In comparison, the past 8 seasons have seen 3 finals from La Liga teams (all 3 appearances from Barcelona). La Liga had more of a presence in the finals in the years building up to the 2002 Galacticos victory.

Winners

La Liga has taken more UCL titles than any other league in Europe. Currently sitting on a 75% chance of victory if a La Liga team reaches the final. All 6 of the La Liga titles have been won by either Real Madrid or Barcelona, whereas 3 of the 4 EPL titles have been won by different teams. A shock to the Bundesliga (recently rewarded with 4 UCL spots) is their success rate over the past 15 seasons. 1 title (Bayern Munich). Even more worrying for the rest of Europe is that there have been no winners over the past 8 years other than Serie A, La Liga & EPL. A total domination of titles shared amongst 3 leagues.

Bear in mind that all of these stats are taken from the 1997/98 season – 2011/12. The reason is that 1997/98 was the first season to invite other teams apart from the league winners. This means we can grade the league and not just 1 team from the league (as pre-1997/98 tournaments were structured). Since UEFA have invited more than just 1 EPL team into the UCL, I would venture to say that they have dominated. Using the tables above, we can take the following info:

 This is a table based on presence – basically, who was there in the final stages over a period of 15 years. There has been more of a presence in the final stages by EPL teams rather than La Liga. The difference is that the La Liga teams go on to win the trophy when reaching the final. Well 6 out of 8 times, that is. At the end of the season, the winners are always remembered & rightfully so. Hopefully this article shows that the EPL, in recent years, has been the league to go consistently further than others in this competition. It also shows the vast gap between EPL & La Liga teams when compared to the rest of Europe.

Cheers.

Author: Themba Sweet

Twitter: @thembasweet

Site: http://footiecall.blogspot.com/

You can find more of Themba's work here

League Dominance in Euro 2012

Themba Sweet is back with a statistical review of the Euro’s for The Football Front, based entirely on where the players ply their trade. The first attempt at this really didn’t have the right grading tools. I’ve added & subtracted some attributes & also changed the weighting of these attributes. But first, let’s recap what the intention of this little project is:

• We grouped players who play their club football in the same league and gave them points for the goals they scored, assists & performances they made. So Nasri, Rooney, Torres & RVP all scored points for the EPL as long as they featured, scored or assisted.

I’ve done this to help add some flavour to the Euro’s, generate debate and, see which league carried their average form into the Euro’s. As stated before I've also changed the grading system now, so here it is:

• 1 point per shot on target
• 3 points per assist
• 5 points per goal
• 5 points per MOM
• 6 points for Team of the Tournament

So there have been 295 shots on target, 76 goals, 65 assists, 31 Man of the Match's & 15 top players.....let's see where they came from, and we'll take a little look at the top performing clubs. We're expecting the EPL to do well since they have the largest contingent at Euro 2012. Were they the top performing league though?

Let's start with the obvious - Goals:

While there were 6 players who shared the top goal-scorer title, 2 of them came from the EPL (Torres & Balotelli) & 2 came from the Bundesliga (Mandzukic & Gomez). 2 other EPL players managed to score more than once - Bendtner & Silva. In total there were 16 goals scored by players currently in the EPL. Only 9 scored by players from La Liga & Bundesliga (Bundesliga players totalled 14 goals from their 9 players). So the EPL based players, scoring 22 goals, were nearly twice as successful at scoring a goal than their Bundesliga & La Liga counterparts.

 

You may have not spotted this but there were 76 goals scored in Euro 2012 (excluding penalty shoot-outs). The reason there are 75 in the table above is because Glen Johnson scored an own goal & this doesn't count towards any league.

Assists:

There were 65 assists throughout Euro 2012. Once again our expectations that the EPL, by sheer number of participants, has contributed the most assists during the competition. 16 assists for EPL based players puts the EPL ahead of La Liga. This strange way of looking at the Euro's his highlighted in the finale when Torres set up Juan Mata. Although the Spanish team-mates scored for Spain, Torres' assist was the EPL's 15th of the tournament, and Mata's goal was the EPL's 22nd of Euro 2012. Obviously, since they don't play in La Liga, their goals counted for the EPL. Currently it appears as if the EPL is running away with these stats, but that's about to change. Firstly, see the assists chart below with an impressive appearance by the Ukranian Premier League.

 

Shots on Target:

Ronaldo has to be mentioned when looking at Shots on Target. He had the most in the tournament – 15. Iniesta was only 1 shot off target, with 14 on target (yet no goal), and Benzema also making double figures. It is not the easiest feat in the world to get a shot on target, but with this weighting, 5 shots on target is equivalent to 1 goal. With this grading system, 2 goals earn you a solid 10 points. A player from a league would have to take 10 shots on target to match this score, which is unlikely since the most shots on target by 1 player was 15. We also only took into account players with 3 or more shots on target.

 

Carlsberg Man of the Match:

We used the Carlsberg Man of the Match winners since this is a neutral selection & doesn't favour any league in particular. Using a grading system of 5 points for every MOM, we see that La Liga clearly dominate this category. In fact, only 3 EPL players earned themselves MOM awards (Gerrard, Nasri & Torres). 4 layers earned the MOM award more than once during this tournament: Pirlo (Serie A) & Iniesta (La Liga) earned 3 Man of the Match awards, while Ronaldo (La Liga) & Ozil (La Liga) each earned 2 Man of the Match awards.

 

Top 15 players of Euro 2012:

On UEFA.com you can find a write up on how the Castrol Edge rankings work. It basically tracks everything a player does. Xavi won Player of the Tournament in 2008 nad that was entirely based on the Castrol Edge rankings. The Top 15 Players has the highest weight and for good reason. This isn’t the Best Starting XI of Euro 2012, simply the 15 best players:

 

Overall:

Taking all of the above into account and remembering the grading system, below is the overall table which should reflect which league dominated Euro 2012. Our winner is La Liga which ended a clear 40 points ahead of the EPL. Although more goals & assists came from the EPL, La Liga players had more Man of the Match performances & 11 of the top 15 players come from La Liga.

When looking at the actual table, it may not be a surprise to see which leagues make up the top 5: La Liga, EPL, Bundesliga, Serie A & the Russian Premier League:

 

Another point to take note of is the minor influence of the Eredivisie. The truth is that very few players were picked from this league & those that were chosen had very little to do with the outcomes during Euro 2012.

I’ve thrown in a bonus chart using the above scoring system, but one that looks at the actual club instead of the league. Remembering that Ronaldo would score points for Real Madrid, and that a goal is worth 5 points, take a look at the below table and see if it’s something you expected:

Club	Score
Real Madrid	179
Barcelona	88
Man City	83
Bayern	62
Juventus	51
Arsenal	50
Wolfsburg	46
AC Milan	44
Dortmund	41
Chelsea	38
CSKA Moscow	26
Brondby	22
Dynamo Kyiv	22
Liverpool	19
Man United	19
Olympiacos	16
PAOK	16
Plzen	15
Sunderland	15
Cologne	14
Valencia	14
Zenit	14
Udinese	13
FC Porto	11
Lazio	11
Newcastle	10
Panathinaikos	10
Dnipro	9
Munchengladbach	9
PSG	9
Bologna	8
Everton	8
Lokomotiv Moscow	8
Sevilla	8
Tottenham	8
Fiorentina	7
Inter Milan	7
Bordeaux	6
Shakhtar	6
Celtic	5
Leicester City	5
Leverkusen	5
Samsunspor	5
Zaragoza	5
West Brom	4
Ajax	3
Al-Hilal	3
Club Brugge	3
FC Copenhagen	3
Galatasaray	3
Istanbul BB	3
Liberec	3
Lyon	3
Mainz	3
Marseille	3
Roma	3
Spartak Moscow	3
Sporting Lisbon	3
Grand Total	1110

EPL only: 

La Liga only:

 

Twitter: @thembasweet

Site: http://footiecall.blogspot.com/

You can find more of Themba’s work here for The Football Front.

Which league is dominating Euro 2012?

Themba Sweet analyses the first 8 games of Euro 2012 to see which league is dominating the Euros.

Round 1 or the Euro’s is complete and we’ve had 8 games to weigh up the teams. We decided that, at the end of each round, we’ll see how the players from each league are doing and, possibly, compare the top European leagues against each other. If you weren’t previously aware, the Barclays Premier League has the biggest contingency at the Euro’s (72 players, worth about $1406 million), followed by the Bundesliga (45 players, worth about $835 million) and in 3^rd place, La Liga (33 players, worth about $1105 million). So we know that the EPL is a popular league where many of the European stars can be found or where they head to, but…are their players performing well in the Euro’s? Comparing the leagues based on goals and assists alone is not enough so there are other factors we’ve reviewed to give a holistic view of the performances in Euro 2012. Are you still lost? Well let’s get started, it’ll all make sense quite soon:

Goals:

There have been 20 goals scored at the end of Round 1. 5 goals have been scored by players who are currently playing for a Bundesliga team i.e.

Mandzukic x2 (Hamburg), Lewandowski (Dortmund),  Pilar (Wolfsburg) & Gomez (Bayern) = 5 goals for Bundesliga.

Here’s the table so far:

League	Total
Bundesliga	5
EPL	4
Russian Premier League	3
Serie A	2
Ukranian Premier League	2
Danish Superliga	1
English Championship	1
Greek Super League	1
La Liga	1
Grand Total	20

Assists:

There have been 17 assists towards those 20 goals. 5 of those assist have come from players currently in the English Premier League:

League	Total
EPL	5
Bundesliga	3
Ukranian Premier League	3
Ligue 1	2
Russian Premier League	2
La Liga	1
Serie A	1
Danish Superliga	0
English Championship	0
Greek Super League	0
Grand Total	17

Combined:

Let’s combine these charts to see who’s really dominating based purely on goals & assists:

League	Total
EPL	9
Bundesliga	8
Russian Premier League	5
Ukranian Premier League	5
Serie A	3
La Liga	2
Ligue 1	2
Danish Superliga	1
English Championship	1
Greek Super League	1
Grand Total	37

Well that’s the straight forward answer, but it doesn’t tell you who have been the danger-men, who’s making this a tournament to remember and who is proving to be a good reflection of their league. We’re mainly focusing on attacking since the stats can be easily compared & measured. To get a real idea of which players are dominating the Euro’s we’ll need to take this into account also:

Shots on target:

Who’s been taking shots on target? If it wasn’t for either the post or rather good goalkeeping, these shots could be. We’ve only taken players who have had 3 or more shots on target into account. The English Premier League players are clearly the more accurate strikers so far:

League	Total
La Liga	15
EPL	11
Bundesliga	4
Danish Superliga	3
Ukranian Premier League	3
Grand Total	36

Shots off target:

Although not a vital stat, it shows attacking intent & since we’re only taking players with 3 or more shots, you can see who’s the more trigger-happy players. They’re also the players lighting up the tournament:

League	Total
La Liga	11
Bundesliga	9
EPL	9
Russian Premier League	6
Ukranian Premier League	5
Danish Superliga	0
Grand Total	40

Castrol Man of the Match:

This is quite an important factor. Castrol are monitoring every player in every game of the tournament and use technology to analyse and grade players’ performances. They track every pass, save, shot, tackle, interception & even the blocked shots. Based on this, they basically have a “Man of the Match” for every game. Here they are broken down per league.

League	Total
Bundesliga	3
Greek Super League	1
Ligue 1	1
Russian Premier League	1
Serie A	1
Ukranian Premier League	1
Grand Total	8

Top Castrol players per position:

Castrol stats publish their ratings for the players in the tournament. From this they can award the overall Player of the Tournament once the Euro’s are complete. From this list, we’ve taken the best players in each position - GK, DF, MF, FW.

We’ve taken the top 2 GK, 5 DF, 5 MF and 3 FW to make a team of 15.

League	Total
Bundesliga	6
Russian Premier League	2
EPL	2
La Liga	2
Ligue 1	1
Serie A	1
Ukranian Premier League	1
Greek Super League	0
Grand Total	15

So above are the various areas where we’ve graded the players. We’ve allocated a point for a goal & a point for a shot off target which some might feel is unfair. This completely misses the thought behind all of this though. The idea is not to state the obvious – that a goal is obviously the most important stat – but rather to gauge which leagues are being represented well, which leagues are making the Euro’s great, who’s bringing the excitement & who has the biggest influence on the Euro’s. After adding all of these stats together, it’s quite clear (and expected) that the top 3 European leagues are dominating the Euro’s. So although Spain only had 1 goal, their players have done many other impressive feats and, remember, that not all La Liga players come from Spain. As we discussed in the beginning, the EPL has the largest contingency at Euro 2012 – 72 players. Only 23 of the 72 make up the English national team. Therefore it’s not surprising to see them top after round 1. Here is the overall league dominance of Euro 2012 (after round 1):

League	Total
EPL	31
Bundesliga	30
La Liga	30
Ukranian Premier League	15
Russian Premier League	14
Serie A	5
Danish Superliga	4
Ligue 1	4
Greek Super League	2
English Championship	1
Grand Total	136

Author: Themba Sweet

Twitter: @thembasweet

Site: http://footiecall.blogspot.com/