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What could happen in the Champions League knockout stage?

| 14.02.2022
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European club football is about to return to the calendar, with the Champions League knockout stage taking centre stage.

To help you with your Champions League betting, we have crunched the numbers from every tie since the current format was established in 2003-04 to reveal some interesting patterns.

Which nations perform best in the Champions League knockout stage?

This year the Round of 16 features four English clubs and three from Spain, with no other nation boasting more than two representatives.

Under the current format, almost two-thirds of Champions League finalists – 23 out of 36 – have hailed from England (13) or Spain (10). Only four other nations can boast a finalist in this period and all are represented this year: five apiece from Italy and Germany, two from France and one from Portugal.

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RB Salzburg are the first Austrian team to reach the Round of 16 under the current format, so there is no precedent for how far they could go. Of the 30 clubs from a nation outside of the seven listed above to have reached the Champions League knockout stage, only five got to the quarter-finals and none made it any further, so they will have their work cut out for them.

Which countries fare best against each other in the Champions League?

With Bayern Munich and Manchester City each facing an opponent from outside the ‘big five’ European leagues in the Round of 16, they can be fairly confident of progressing to the quarter-finals if history repeats itself.

German clubs have won 15 out of their 16 knockout ties against a club from a less established nation under the current format. Schalke’s defeat by Galatasaray of Turkey is the only blot on their country’s copy book in this period. Meanwhile 18 English clubs out of a possible 20 have prevailed under similar circumstances.

Champions League knockout stage, head-to-head records

Manchester United should be wary of Atletico Madrid given that Spanish opponents have been English clubs’ Achilles’ heel in the Champions League knockout stage: 17 of the 28 ties between representatives of these two nations have seen the Premier League team eliminated.

The Round of 16 draw has not been kind to Serie A either, with Juventus and Inter up against clubs from Spain and England: the two nations with the best record against Italian sides under this knockout format.

Does a club’s Champions League group stage record matter in the knockouts?

The clubs remaining in this season’s competition have among the most diverse group stage records we have ever seen since the current format was established in 2004.

In the 18 iterations of the competition up to 2021 there have only been three clubs who took maximum points from their group games, but this season has seen that tally double with Liverpool, Ajax and Bayern all registering six wins.

The three previous clubs to achieve this – Real Madrid in 2012 and 2015, followed by a Bayern side featuring many of the same players in 2020 – all went on to reach the semi-finals that year.

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At the other end of the spectrum we have two teams who recorded only two wins out of a possible six in their groups: Atletico Madrid and Benfica.

History suggests that both will struggle to reach the quarter-finals, as fewer than a third of clubs to have qualified with two group stage victories to their name did so (12 out of 41).

How much does the first leg matter?

With teams tending to be fairly evenly matched at this stage, home advantage is a huge factor and failing to exploit it is usually fatal.

Interestingly, playing the first leg at home is something of a disadvantage, with almost two-thirds of the 246 two-legged knockout ties under the current format being won by the team who were at home in the second leg: 155 to 91.

When the home team has won the first leg, they have had a roughly two in three chance of seeing out the tie and reaching the next round. There has not been much difference in the success rates of those winning by one goal and those who took a two-goal lead into the away leg, so unless the away team suffers a heavy defeat it is often premature to write them off.

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Just shy of three-quarters of away teams who secure a draw in the first leg will go on to progress, and an away win in the first leg is usually decisive. Only four teams out of the 77 who have lost at home in the first leg of a Champions League tie under the current format have recovered to qualify for the next round.

Three of those bounced back from a one-goal deficit and the other was Manchester United’s comeback against PSG in 2019, in which they won on away goals after following up a 2-0 home defeat with a 3-1 win in the French capital.

Which clubs have the most Champions League experience?

The intensity of the Champions League knockout stage is difficult to replicate at domestic level, where most opponents will be of a significantly lower standard and the jeopardy of a knockout competition is often absent. Therefore a squad’s collective experience of the latter stages of the tournament is a valuable resource for managers to exploit.

Bayern and Manchester City each possess significantly more collective experience at this level than their opponents in the Round of 16, while Juventus and Chelsea players should also be far less overwhelmed by the occasion than the squads they are facing.

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The two most experienced squads remaining in the competition are actually going up against each other in the Round of 16. PSG and Real Madrid have Champions League centurions like Lionel Messi and Karim Benzema to choose from, while Sergio Ramos will face off against many of his former teammates after swapping Spain for France last summer.

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Author

Andrew McDermott

Andrew is a sports betting content journalist at PA Media. He is a lifelong Huddersfield Town fan but when he isn't reminiscing about their Premier League days he is also a junior cricket coach and enjoys cycling.