Some interesting stats (if you’re nerdish) on whether it’s better to have a home game first or second in European competition.
All stats are based on the last 50 years of European competition and are from this German article and a couple of other sources.
First of all overall 55% of the matches played in Europe have resulted with the team playing away first progressing (3,215 out of 5,878). This is a bit distorted though because it doesn’t exclude matches where the seedings are very different and one result is highly more expected than another.
TABLE ONE:
What are your chances of progressing in Europe depending on the result of your first game if it’s at home?
The table below shows the margin of loss or victory for the home team in the first leg of the competition and the second column shows the percentage of teams that have won or lost by that margin and then won overall over the 2 legs.
Diff. % Further Out
<-2 0% 0 357
-2 2% 7 380
-1 7% 44 668
neg 4% 51 1405
±0 24% 301 942
+1 51% 667 632
+2 78% 669 190
+3 92% 469 43
+4 99% 240 3
+4 100% 266 0
pos 73% 2311 868
In other words of the 357 games where the home team lost by more than 2 goals in the first leg none have advanced. Of the 380 games where the home team lost by 2 goals only 7 have advanced etc.
The interesting stuff to take from it (assuming you find this sort of stuff interesting) is that of the teams that drew their home leg first only 24% have advanced. 73% of teams that won their home leg first progressed to the next round. The away teams who won the first leg progressed on 96% of the ties.
TABLE TWO
This table shows how some top teams in Europe have progressed depending on whether their first leg was at home or away first.
Club Home Through Away Through
Real Madrid 61 67% 77 84%
FC Barcelona 55 78% 76 75%
Juventus Turin 50 78% 77 77%
Bayern Mnchen 59 73% 52 79%
Inter Mailand 62 79% 61 67%
AC Mailand 42 86% 44 77%
RSC Anderlecht 54 76% 62 68%
Ajax Amsterdam 44 59% 52 77%
Liverpool FC 38 79% 61 79%
Benfica Lissabon 52 75% 62 65%
Ajax in winning three titles only played at home first twice - they had ten away games first. They have only won one game beyond the quarter final where the home leg was first.
TABLE THREE
Teams that have played more games in Europe have a better chance of progressing when the home leg is first:
Teams Further Out
1-10 540 263 783
11-20 118 355 585
21-30 58 286 450
31-40 34 254 340
41-50 26 281 278
51-60 9 115 99
61-70 19 329 283
71-80 8 175 109
81-90 6 164 105
91-100 4 118 64
100 8 323 119
Column 1 shows the number of games that teams have played in European competition. So of the 540 teams that have played less than 10 games where their home leg was first the majority of them have gone out in that round. As the experience of the teams develops they become better teams (more often in Europe = better team anyway) but the importance of whether the first game is at home or away is diminished.
TABLE FOUR
Finally from this site there is a graph showing the improved chances of progressing for those teams who have the home leg second: