Do mid-week European matches influence European teams

European teams’ performance following mid-week matches

Do mid-week European matches inﬂuence

European teams’ performance in their domestic

league? A 20-year study

Martin Buchheit,

1 2 3

Maxime Settembre,

Karim Hader,

Adrien Tarascon,

Derek McHugh,

Raymond Verheijen

Kitman Labs, Dublin, Ireland

Lille OSC, Lille, France

HIITscience, Revelstoke, Canada

Football Coach Evolution, The Netherlands

Congested ﬁxtures | Champions League | European League | Player rotation

Headline

he topic of congested ﬁxtures in elite football is constantly

front of mind (6), with managers repeatedly complaining

about it. Higher rates of injuries are sometimes reported when

teams have to play with only 2 or 3 days of recovery (1-4),

and the need for player rotations to maintain their health is

often a challenge to maintain teams’ competitiveness - which

can result in poorer competitive performance on the pitch.

Teams playing in European competitions such as the Champi-

ons League (CL) or the Europa League (EL) are therefore the

most exposed teams to congested ﬁxtures (i.e., need to add at

least 6 matches to the calendar in between league matches for

a team only playing the ﬁrst stage). However, given the depth

of their squad and the quality of their players, whether those

teams actually suﬀer from the congestion at the level of their

domestic leagues remains to be examined in detail. In fact, it

could be hypothesised that in contrast to common beliefs, and

especially over the past years where the top clubs are becom-

ing even better, European teams manage to maintain their

level of competitiveness in their league and that congested ﬁx-

tures are not obligatorily associated with poorer results. Also,

how match location may inﬂuence this performance dynamic

is also to be examined; playing two away matches congested

is obviously a much greater challenge than 2 home matches or

non-congested matches.

Aim

The aim of this study was to examine CL and EL teams’ per-

formance (% of wins and possible points gained per match) in

their domestic league and assess whether the congestion im-

posed by the European competitions (i.e., mid-week matches)

aﬀects their results. A second aim was to look at the eﬀect

of match locations on the above performance dynamics when

European League teams played in congested ﬁxtures. The

present results may help European clubs to understand which

match(es) may require advanced recovery protocols/enhanced

travel logistics to maintain their chance of winning during

congested periods. Second, our ﬁndings may also help non-

European clubs to make their programming wishes ahead of

the season in order to maximise their chance of winning against

European teams.

Methods

We extracted the ﬁxtures data of the teams competing in the

top 7 European leagues i.e. Spain, England, Germany, Hol-

land, Italy, France and Portugal. This includes 20 seasons

from 2001/02 to 2020/21. The ﬁxtures from all in-season com-

petitions were considered i.e. leagues and domestic, European

and international cups. This data was scraped from Transfer-

markt. Across the 20 seasons, this represents 43 competitions,

269 teams and more than 61,000 ﬁxtures.

Teams classiﬁed as CL and EL teams participated in Euro-

pean competitions during the season of interest and kept their

status during the whole season (whether they qualiﬁed or not

for the ﬁnal stages).

For the purpose of the present study, we ﬁrst analyzed Eu-

ropean teams’ results vs. their domestic league opponents as

a whole (excluding the other CL teams when looking at CL

teams’ results, and excluding EL teams when looking at EL

teams’ performance), irrespective of ﬁxtures. Note that in this

context, CL teams are included in the non-EL teams. Then,

we focused on extreme levels of congestion, i.e., when Euro-

pean teams played with only 2 days of recovery. This happens

when a CL team plays on Wednesday in the CL and then again

in their domestic league on Saturday, or an EL team plays on

Thursday and then again on Sunday. This analysis was re-

peated for every season between 2001/2002 and 2020/2021.

We then presented trends per season and for the 2 decades

(2001/02 - 2010/11 and 2011/12 - 2020/21).

Finally, to examine the eﬀect of match locations on the

above performance dynamics when teams played in congested

ﬁxtures, we considered the 4 following scenarios:

•

European match at home, followed by a league match at

home within the next 3 days (home/home).

•

European match at home, followed by a league match away

within the next 3 days (home/away).

•

European match away, followed by a league match at home

within the next 3 days (away/home).

•

European match away, followed by a league match away

within the next 3 days (away/away).

Statistical Analysis

Statistical signiﬁcance was examined using the Chi-square test

of independence. We provide p-values but their interpretation

with respect to thresholds is left to the reader’s discretion. To

provide some practical meaning to the observed diﬀerences,

we calculated the expected points won by teams per game in

relation to their % of wins, draws and losses. For instance,

let’s assume that there are 70% of wins, 20% of draws and

10% of losses in a given cohort, the expected points per game

(EPG) are :

EPG = 0.7 * 3 + 0.2 * 1 + 0.1 * 0 = 2.3 points per game.

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European teams’ performance following mid-week matches

Results

The results of the overall analysis (irrespective of ﬁxture sched-

ules) showed that the absolute % of domestic league wins was

clearly greater for CL than EL teams (p<0.001, Table 1), with

on average 2.0 and 2.1 points per match (or >70-80 points

over a season in a 20-team league where 2 teams play the CL)

gained for CL teams during the 2001/11 and 2011/22 decades,

and 1.6 and 1.7 (or >60-65 points over a seasonin a 20-team

league where 2 teams play the EL) for EL teams.

Against their non-CL counterparts, CL teams tended to win

the large majority of their matches, with a clear improvement

over the years (58.5% and 64.8% for the 1st and 2nd decades,

respectively Table 1, p<0.001). EL had a greater % of wins

than draws or losses against non-EL teams, and this perfor-

mance increased as well over the 2 decades (44.1% and 49.2%

for the 1st and 2nd decades, respectively Table 1, p<0.001).

When looking at year-by-year trends, there was a progres-

sive increase in both European League teams’ performance

throughout the 2 decades (+0.5% win/year for both CL and

EL, Figures 1 and 2).

When looking at congested matches only (i.e., a domestic

league match played within 2 days of recovery following a mid-

week European match), there was a similar trend for a pro-

gressive increase in wins over the years (i.e., +0.5% and +0.3%

win/year for CL and EL, respectively, Figure 3 and 4).

The trends of the points per domestic league match gained

by CL (approx. +0.15 points/match per year) and EL (ap-

prox. +0.1 points/match per year) teams over the past 2

decades when playing following a mid-week European match

or not within 2 days are shown in Figure 5. When looking at

all teams pooled together, irrespective of playing standard and

ﬁxtures during the 2 consecutive decades, the eﬀect of match

location was pretty straightforward (p<0;001), with almost 2x

more chances to win a home match than to either draw or lose

(Table 2).

Table 1. Percentage of domestic league wins/draws/losses for Champions League (CL) teams against non-CL

teams over the past 2 decades, irrespective of ﬁxtures and match location. Note that the non-CL pool of teams

includes EL teams, and that of non-EL includes CL teams.

Champions League Teams overall in League against non Champions League teams

Period 2001/02 - 2010/11 2011/12 - 2020/21

Wins 58.5% 3789 64.8% 4223

Draws 23.3% 1509 19.3% 1261

Losses 18.1% 1174 15.9% 1038

Points/match 1.99 6472 2.14 6522

Europa League Teams overall in League against non Europa League teams

Wins 44.1% 3764 49.2% 3547

Draws 25.7% 2197 24.1% 1737

Losses 30.1% 2572 26.7% 1929

Points/match 1.58 8533 1.72 7213

Fig. 1. Percentage of domestic league wins/draws/losses for Champions League (CL) teams against non-CL teams over

the past 2 decades.

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European teams’ performance following mid-week matches

Fig. 2. Percentage of domestic league wins/draws/losses for Europa League (EL) teams against non-EL teams over the

past 2 decades.

Fig. 3. Percentage of domestic league wins/draws/losses for Champions League (CL) teams when playing non-CL teams

following a European mid-week match within 2 days over the past 2 decades.

Fig. 4. Percentage of domestic league wins/draws/losses for Europa League (EL) teams when playing non-EL teams

following a European mid-week match within 2 days over the past 2 decades.

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European teams’ performance following mid-week matches

Fig. 5. Points per domestic league match gained by Champions League (CL) and Europa League (EL) teams when

playing following or not a mid-week European match within 2 days over the past 2 decades.

Table 2. Percentage of home wins/draws/away wins for all teams pooled, irrespective of ﬁxtures during the 2

decades analyzed.

HOME/AWAY WINS AND DRAWS

Period 2001/02 - 2010/11 2011/12 - 2020/21

Home Wins 47.2% 12705 45.5% 12268

Draws 26.1% 7001 24.6% 6634

Away Wins 26.7% 7166 29.9% 8074

Points/match 1.68 26872 1.61 26976

Table 3. European teams’ performance when playing against non-CL or non-EL teams following a mid-week

European game within only 2 days, or not (i.e., either the previous game was not a European game, or they

had >3 rest days) as a function of the diﬀerent combination of match location. Note that the non-CL pool of

teams includes EL teams, and that of non-EL includes CL teams.

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European teams’ performance following mid-week matches

Table 4. Percentage of home wins for non-European teams while not playing congested during the 2 consecutive

decades.

NON-EUROPEAN TEAMS IN LEAGUE AT HOME WHILE NON CONGESTED

Period 2001/02 - 2010/11 2011/12 - 2020/21

Win 41.2% 5079 38.5% 4906

Draw 27.6% 3400 26.5% 3367

Lose 31.2% 3837 35.0% 4459

Points/match 1.51 12316 1.42 12732

Fig. 6. Percentage of domestic wins for Champion Leagues (CL) teams when playing against non-CL teams only 2 days

after a mid-week CL match during 2001/10 and 2011/21 decades. The short lines on each bar represent percentages of

wins for CL teams when not playing European mid-week matches (67/46% and 70.2/52.6% for home/away over the 1st

and 2nd decade, respectively). The grey lines represent percentages of wins for non-European teams when playing at

home (41.2% and 38.5% over the 1st and 2nd decade, respectively). Away− >Home: away mid-week European match

at home followed by a domestic home match. Home− >Away:

Fig. 7. Percentage of domestic wins for Europa League (EL) Teams when playing against non-EL teams only 2 days

after a mid-week EL match during the 2001-10 and 2011-21 decades. The short lines on each bar represent percentages

of wins for EL teams when playing with no European mid-week matches (51.2/32.2% and 56.2/41.2% for home/away

over the 1st and 2nd decade, respectively). The grey lines represent percentage wins of non-European teams playing

at home (41.2% and 38.5% for over the 1st and 2nd decade, respectively). Away− >Home: away mid-week European

match at home followed by a domestic home match. Home− >Away: home mid-week European match followed by a

domestic away match. Away− >Away: away mid-week European match at home followed by a domestic away match.

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European teams’ performance following mid-week matches

Fig. 8. Points per domestic match gained for Champions League (CL) and Europa League (EL) teams when playing

a mid-week European match, for all four location scenarios over the past 2 decades. Home− >Home: home mid-

week European match followed by a domestic home match. Away− >Home: away mid-week European match at home

followed by a domestic home match. Home− >Away: home mid-week European match followed by a domestic away

match. Away− >Away: away mid-week European match at home followed by a domestic away match.

When looking speciﬁcally at the eﬀect of match location for

European teams during congested ﬁxtures in domestic leagues,

the % of wins for CL and EL teams decreased when the do-

mestic league match was played away vs home, with no ef-

fect of the mid-week match location during the ﬁrst decade

(Table 3 and Figure 6 & 7). Overall, performance was as fol-

lows; home/home = away/home > home/away = away/away.

During the second decade, there was a decreased performance

for away/home, so the performance sequence was as follows:

home/home > away/home > home/away = away/away (Table

3 and Figures 6 & 7).

The average points per domestic match gained for Champi-

ons League (CL) and Europa League (EL) teams when playing

a mid-week European match, for all the four location scenar-

ios over the past 2 decades is shown in Figure 8. Overall the

trends followed that of the wins presented in Figures 6 and 7

(p<0.001).

Table 4 shows the percentage of home wins for non-

European teams while not playing congested during the 2

consecutive decades (p<0.001). The average point gained per

match was around 1.5.

Discussion

Following the pioneering work on match congestion and “the

eﬀect of recovery days between matches on teams’ perfor-

mance” by R. Verheijen in 2012 (6), we revisited the topic

with a speciﬁc focus on the performance of European teams

in their domestic league over the past 2 decades. The current

data set is unique, with more than 61,000 ﬁxtures analysed in

total.

While match programming is mainly dictated by TV broad-

casters, we believe that the information provided here may

help 1) European club staﬀ to understand expected perfor-

mance in the speciﬁc context of congested domestic league

matches following mid-week matches, and which match(es)

may require advanced recovery protocols and enhanced travel

logistics to maintain their higher chances of winning, 2) non-

European clubs to make their programming wishes ahead

of the season (and try to maximise their chance of winning

against European teams).

The ﬁrst ﬁndings showed a progressive increase in the per-

centage of wins of European teams in their domestic leagues

over the past 2 decades (approx. +0.5% win/year for both

CL and EL, Table 1 and Figures 1-4). This translates into

approx. +0.15 and +0.1 points/match or 4 to 6 points in

total per year for CL and EL teams respectively (Figure 5).

This likely reﬂects the increase in the ﬁnancial power of the

richest clubs, which after receiving more funding from both

private investors (e.g., Man City, Tottenham, PSG, and more

recently Newcastle) and TV rights, have the opportunity to

recruit more talented players - which in turn, creates a bigger

gap between them and the rest of the club in their respective

leagues.

It’s also probably because of the higher player quality and

quantity that European teams tend not to dramatically suﬀer

from congestion, at least when playing the domestic league

matches at home (Table 3, Figures 5 & 6). In fact, the domes-

tic league performance of European teams was almost always

similar (or even superior at some points, e.g., 77% vs 70% for

home/home vs home for CL teams during the second decade)

when playing congested than when not (Table 3 and Figure 5

& 6).

In the worst-case scenario (away/away), the % of wins for

CL (41 and 56.5% vs. non-European and EL teams for the 1st

and 2nd decade, Table 3) was still similar (2001-2010) or even

superior (2011-2020) to the overall % of wins of non-European

teams at home during non-congested ﬁxtures (41 and 38.5%

for the 1st and 2nd decade, Table 4) (Figure 5). In practice,

following a mid-week match, CL teams were still gaining >0.5

points more per match than their non-European counterparts

(≥2 vs 1.5 points/match).

With respect to EL teams, when playing in the worst-case

scenario (away/away), they tended to win less (32%, 2001-

2010) or slightly more (40%, 2011-2020) than the pool of non-

European teams at home during non-congested ﬁxtures (Fig-

ure 6). The exact reasons for this diﬀerence in comparison

with CL teams remain unclear, but may be related to their

lower squad quality that may not allow them to be as con-

sistent as CL teams when rotations occur during congested

schedules.

More speciﬁcally, the % of wins for CL and EL teams de-

creased when the domestic league match was played away,

with no eﬀect of the mid-week match location during the ﬁrst

sportperfsci.com 6 SPSR - 2022 | October | 175 | v1

European teams’ performance following mid-week matches

decade (Table 3 and Figures 5 & 6). Overall, performance

was as follows; home/home = away/home > home/away =

away/away. During the second decade, there was a decreased

performance for away/home, so the performance sequence

was as follows: home/home > away/home > home/away =

away/away (Table 3 and Figures 5 & 6).

This current trend for a greater percentage of domestic

league wins at home vs away after a mid-week European match

is actually not very surprising since home matches (irrespec-

tive of teams and context) are generally associated with almost

2x more chance of winning (Table 2). In practice, this trans-

lates into +15 to 20% of chance winning at home for 2001/02-

2010/11 and 2011/12-2020/21, respectively (Table 2). More

speciﬁcally, the % drop between away and home domestics

matches for European teams (e.g., -15 to -26% depending on

the decade and the European standard, Figures 5 and 6) is

very similar to that of the overall diﬀerence between home

and away matches (Table 2), which suggests that congestions

and travels are unlikely to worsen the eﬀect of match location

per se.

The fact, however, that performance tended to be similar

for the home/home vs. away/home for CL (Figure 5) and EL

(Figure 6) during the ﬁrst decade, and almost similar in all sit-

uations for away/home vs away/away (except for EL during

the 2nd decade) shows that travelling is not that challenging

for the European clubs to maintain their performance. This is

likely related to the optimal travelling conditions they beneﬁt

from (private charter ﬂights, 5-star hotels, optimal recovery

conditions both in terms of treatment, hydrotherapy, exercise

and nutrition), that seem to oﬀ-set the detrimental eﬀect of

travel (5) (in addition to the larger options for those bigger

teams to rotate more players while maintaining a high proba-

bility of winning). The small decrease in % wins noted for CL

and EL teams between home/home and away/home during the

2nd decade are unlikely related to these logistics since they are

getting even more resources than before; the relatively higher

rate of wins rather explains it during the home/home context

(77% and 58% of wins for CL and EL teams, respectively!).

While the % of domestic league wins was clearly greater for

CL than EL teams irrespective of the context (mid-week Eu-

ropean matches or not, home or away, Table 3), the trends

discussed above over time (across the 2 decades) and in rela-

tion to playing locations were very similar. This suggests that

the potential reasons given above to explain the superiority of

European teams are consistent across diﬀerent contexts, with

the magnitude of the ‘European eﬀect’ related to the breaths

of the squad of talented players and the available logistics fa-

cilitating recovery and player readiness during the repeated

travels (i.e., CL vs. EL resources) (5). Of course, EL teams

also have to play against CL teams which directly worsens

their overall performance.

Practically, when it comes to making wishes as to when to

play against European teams, the (logical) saying that non-

European teams should request to play them at home follow-

ing an away European match played mid-week (for the Eu-

ropean team to play congested away/away) is only supported

by the present results for EL teams over the 2nd decade anal-

ysis (Figure 6, with EL teams winning less than when non-

congested). In comparison to their usual performance vs EL

teams, this strategy may allow non-European teams to win 0.2

more points per match (Figure 8), which may translate into

1-2 extra points over the entire season if all of those matches

were to be scheduled optimally.

When playing against a CL team away, it’s probably also

better to play them after an away mid-week match (Figure 5).

In fact, and especially since 2011, CL teams won even more

domestic league matches in a home/home congested context

than when playing home only once a week! This is again likely

related to the fact that they can rotate players without aﬀect-

ing their chances of winning, and/or that the gap vs. lower

status teams is large enough for them not to play the best

team either.

While the current analysis has allowed us to shed some light

on the potential eﬀect of travel and congestions on European

teams’ performance, future work is now required to indirectly

examine the eﬀect of player rotation(s) on team performance

(which tends to occur as a consequence of congested ﬁxtures).

Practical applications

•

European teams (i.e., both CL and EL) have won more

and more matches in their domestic leagues over the past

2 decades, with +0.3 and +0.2 points gained per game or

a total of 8 to 12 points (over a full season) for CL and

EL teams, respectively - in other words, the gap between

European and non-European clubs has been increasing pro-

gressively.

•

CL teams seem not to suﬀer much from congestion at their

domestic levels: despite the fact that their % of wins is

lower when they play away, the drop in % of wins is sim-

ilar to that of generic away vs. home matches (i.e., -0.1

points/match), suggesting that congestion and travels are

not substantially worsening the eﬀect of match location per

se.

•

CL teams’ winning rates during congested away/away

matches are still largely greater than the average winning

percentage of the rest of the non-European teams during

non-congested ﬁxtures (i.e., up to +0.5 points/match for

CL teams).

•

The fact that European Teams’ performance was similar

for the congested home/home vs. away/home ﬁxtures (es-

pecially during the 1st decade) and between home/away

and away/away ﬁxtures (almost all cases except EL, 2nd

decade) shows that travelling is not that challenging for the

top clubs to maintain their performance.

•

EL teams win fewer domestic matches than their CL coun-

terparts (which translates into approx. 0.4 points/match

overall), but all the trends over time (over the 2 decades)

and eﬀects of congestion and match location are similar to

that of the CL teams.

•

To slightly increase their chances of winning against EL

teams, non-EL teams may request to play EL teams follow-

ing an away mid-week European match - while it may be

even more advantageous to play the EL teams at home (i.e.,

1-4% less chance to lose than when EL teams don’t have a

mid-week European match, but with similar points/match

gained).

•

When it comes to playing CL teams, non-European teams

may hope to avoid the home/home congested ﬁxture for

the CL teams, which was shown to be the one associated

with the highest percentage of success and points/match

for the CL teams during the last decade (77% of wins and

>2.2 points/match).

•

The current results may be used by coaches and staﬀ of Eu-

ropean teams to motivate players while showing them how

high their winning chances remain, even in the context of

congested ﬁxtures with European mid-week matches.

Acknowledgements

The authors thanks Willian Mendes for his help with ﬁgure

design.

sportperfsci.com 7 SPSR - 2022 | October | 175 | v1

European teams’ performance following mid-week matches

Twitter: Martin Buchheit (@mart1buch), Karim Hader

(@Karad70), Adrien Tarascon (@TarasconAdrien), Derek

McHugh (@DerekMcHugh3), Raymond Verheijen (@ray-

mondverheije)

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