What history can and cannot tell us about who will win the Champions League

Real Madrid last season, Chelsea the previous season, Bayern Munich three seasons ago. Before the round of 16 they did not look like Champions League winners. But they were the sort of teams who would have a good chance of winning if they played better on the right days for a few months, and they did.

Who will win the Champions League this season? The trophy will be handed to the team who get the best results in this competition over the next four months, not in other competitions over the previous six months. Some teams might be more likely to than others. Studying history may give us an inkling of who they could be. But that is all. Anyone still in it can win it.

Let us start with a broad brushstroke then add the finer detail.

The Champions League has followed the same course since 2003-04:  eight groups of four with the top two from each going into knockout rounds. This is the 20th season. What happened in the previous 19?

Eighteen of the winners and all 19 runners-up came from the five leading domestic leagues – the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1. Almost certainly this season’s winners will hail from England, Spain, Germany, Italy or France. There are only three teams in the round of 16 from other countries. That is not unusual, by the way.

Something that is easily overlooked now about Real Madrid, Chelsea and Bayern Munich in the past three seasons is that they all qualified from their group in first place with a high points total. They were not talked up as Champions League winners because that season they had performed below their normal level in domestic competition, or in recent seasons they had not fired in the Champions League knockout rounds.

But impressive group qualification seems to be a sign that a team could do well that campaign in the knockout phase. Thirteen of the last 19 winners, and 29 of the last 38 finalists, had qualified from their group in first place. Group winners were more than three times as likely to reach the final as group runners-up and more than twice as likely to lift the trophy.

The more points a team gained in their group the further they tended to go in the knockout phase, irrespective of whether they progressed in first or second place.

No team qualified from a group with fewer than six points. No team who qualified with fewer than nine points won the Champions League. For teams who qualified from their group with between nine and 12 points the win-rate was four per cent, for teams who qualified from their group with between 13 and 15 points the win-rate was seven per cent, and for teams who qualified from their group with 16 or 18 points the win-rate was 22 per cent.

Most of the success-rates were small, but they were not all the same. Any team in the round of 16 can go all the way to the final and lift the trophy. But those who qualify from their group with a lot of points have been more likely to.  

This season there are five teams from the best-performing national leagues who won their Champions League group with greater than 12 points: Bayern Munich (18), Napoli (15), Manchester City (14), Chelsea and Real Madrid (13). In addition Liverpool and PSG were runners-up with 15 and 14 points.

You win the Champions League by playing well in the Champions League. That means you are capable of playing well in your national league, but it does not mean you are doing so at the moment.

Chelsea in 2020-21 and Bayern Munich in 2019-20 were not when they qualified for the round of 16, though they were by the time it was played. English teams who finished first or second in the Premier League were less likely to win the Champions League than those who finished fifth or sixth. This season Chelsea and Liverpool are lower, ninth and tenth, but they are capable of a lot better.

This is the central point, really. Some clubs appear to have a better chance of winning the Champions League than others. They may or may not have shown how good they can be this season in domestic competitions. They are the richest clubs from the richest national leagues. They tend to pay top wages from top revenues.

Eighteen of the last 19 Champions League winners appeared in the top ten of the Deloitte Football Money League for that season. It ranks clubs by revenue. Six of the seven clubs already mentioned are regulars in the Money League top ten: Manchester City, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, PSG, Liverpool and Chelsea. Another is Tottenham, who won their Champions League group though with only 11 points. What matters now is who does what next.

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