Real Madrid are the most likely to win this season's Champions League
trophy, according to a study by the CIES Football Observatory.
The study looked at three particular performance indicators --
Experience; Squad Stability and Transfer Policy -- before comparing with
those of the last five winners: Inter Milan (2010); Barcelona (2011);
Chelsea (2012); Bayern (2013); Real Madrid (2014).
In the Experience category, the last five previous winners gathered
players with a total experience of 865 matches in the competition. This
season, only three out of the eight teams that qualified for the
quarterfinals in the 2014-15 edition have squads with such experience:
Bayern Munich (932), Real Madrid (911) and Barcelona (864), with PSG the
next at 569.
Madrid (312) and Barcelona (311) also score highly when the number of
international players who have played for their countries are taken
into consideration, with Bayern's 244 games coming some way off the
previous five winners' score of 293.
In Squad Stability, the last five Champions League winners had
players who were present in the first team squad for 3.5 years on
average. Again, only Barcelona (4.00) and Real Madrid (3.83) came in
over the average, while while Bayern (3.41) and Juventus (3.15) both
came close.
To measure the level of cohesion, the study found that, on average,
the last five Champions League winners had to incorporate an average of
2.6 new players. The fact that Madrid scored (2.08) highlights more
stability than FC Porto who finished top in this category with 4.89 new
players.
Finally, the ability of clubs to assemble experienced and stable
squads also depends on financial clout. Only three of the teams
qualified for the quarterfinals -- Real Madrid (€590 million), PSG
(€443m) and Barcelona (€336m) -- have invested more than the €307m
average transfer expenditure of the last five winners.
Clearly, the success of clubs like Dortmund who spent €56m and
reached the final in 2012-13 means that there are exceptions, but money
talks and of the three categories investigated by the study, Real Madrid
come out on top to defend their title.
