Why the usual suspects dominate the UCL knockout stage

This Champions League betting article looks at recent trends that help predict the Champions League winner, and why teams from England, Spain, Germany and Italy tend to dominate the UCL knockout stage.

The Champions League is dominated by the major soccer nations. You have to go back 11 tournaments to find a winner, in Porto, who didn’t hail from Spain, England, Italy, or Germany.

In the past decade domestic success 12 months earlier hasn’t guaranteed Champions League victory. Since Porto’s win, six of the subsequent ten winners failed to win their domestic league the previous season.

Since the tournaments expansion a defeat in the group stage is not fatal, and the two-legged nature of knockout games allows a team to recover from a single poor performance.

Winning your Champions League group

Although past events aren’t perfect indicators of future performance, a side which does particularly well in the group stage has gone on to lift the trophy frequently.

In the ten competitions since Porto’s win, just Liverpool, the following year and another Mourinho managed team in Inter in 2009/10 have lifted the trophy when qualifying from the group stages as a runner up.

17 of the last 20 finalists topped their group, so although the group phase only consists of six matches per team, it does appear to be sufficient in identifying the stronger teams.

Over the last decade Spain, England, Italy, followed by Germany have provided the winners, the bulk of which have topped their group with an average of 13 points.

Predicting the Champions League winner

This year English clubs have been eliminated prior to the Quarter-final stage and the teams represented instead are Monaco, Porto and PSG. History suggests none of these teams will progress to the final.

Juventus have the pedigree, but only finished runners-up in Group A, which leaves Atletico, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich as the four sides fitting the profile of recent successful teams – the odds at Pinnacle Sports to win the Champions League represent this.

Interestingly Juventus’ 9.650 could be down to a perceived easy last eight draw against Monaco, while Atletico’s longer price at 16.000 appears to factor in a difficult meeting with Real Madrid.

Historical profiling can be a fast way to spot betting opportunities but it merely confirms obvious preferences. It's no surprise to see Bayern Munich 3.050 and Barcelona 3.390 heading the betting markets.

To enhance your chances of predicting this year's Champions League winner you can go further and look at goal based data - performed particularly in this season’s top matches against similar levels of opposition.

Interlocking form to predict game outcomes

Although currently favourites to lift the trophy, Bayern Munich have yet to meet a Spanish rival, but they did play Manchester City twice in the group fixtures. City then went on to face Barcelona in the last 16.

We can therefore use the two favourites relative performances against a common opponent – Man City.

Similar interlocking form lines exist for all 32 sides which took part in the group phase, not only from games played in the Champions League, but also from domestic competition.

Therefore, an appraisal of the relative strengths of each team remaining in the Champions League can be made by comparing an objective rating, such as goal difference in competitive matches against the other 31 teams, which competed in the group phases.

Using this rating approach of interlocking form lines, the eight Quarter-finalists are all found in the top ten sides from this year’s Champions League.

Chelsea, of the already eliminated teams, are second in the ratings, buoyed by a fine domestic record against their fellow Champions League participants and Leverkusen are 5th.

Ranking prior to the QF stage of the Champions League

Team

Goal Rating

Bayern Munich

1.6

Atletico Madrid

1.3

Barcelona

1.2

Real Madrid

1.1

Porto

1.0

Monaco

0.9

Juventus

0.8

PSG

0.7

Very little separates the last eight sides based on their performance in the Champions League and against other domestic opponents who participated.

The clear exception is Bayern Munich (1.671) who are upwards of three tenths of a goal superior to their nearest rivals and would appear to be worthy favourites, especially facing an inexperienced Porto (5.800) side in the last eight.

Real Madrid’s (2.600) perfect qualifying record is tarnished by an unimpressive domestic record against Atletico (2.990). And Real’s city rivals would appear to present a formidable obstacle at the quarter final stage.

Barcelona (1.925) appear to play the weakest of the survivors in PSG (4.279), who are without key players in the first leg through suspension.

The final tie between Juventus (1.478) and Monaco (9.280) may be closer, based on collateral form, than the strong preference shown to the Italian team would appear to indicate.

This article has highlighted a number of historical betting trends that have been evident in teams winning the Champions League, and explained a concept to determine each team's relative strength.

Based on performance, both domestically against quality opposition and in the Champions League, only Bayern standout as superior of the remaining eight teams.

Click here to see the latest Champions League odds.