Do teams perform better or worse after European games?
Kindly brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs.
European hangovers?
At the start of last season we analysed the impact of European games on teams’ following domestic matches. What we found was that backing teams playing at home after an away trip in Europe was a potentially profitable strategy.
When removing games where teams faced a knock-out game in Europe for their next match (i.e. their domestic match was sandwiched between two European knockout matches) we had 402 relevant games in the Big 5 leagues from 2002/03 to 2011/12 where sides were playing at home following an away game in the Champions League.
Home Games in the Big 5 following an Away Game in Europe (2002/03 to 2011/12)
| Post Euro | Matches | Win % | Draw % | Loss % | Win ROI | Draw ROI | Loss ROI |
| ECL | 402 | 65 | 23 | 12 | -0.7% | -9.7% | -34.1% |
Since the start of last season the results for these situations have been:
| Post Euro | Matches | Win % | Draw % | Loss % | Win ROI | Draw ROI | Loss ROI |
| ECL | 59 | 75 | 12 | 13 | 14.6% | -57.6% | -40.2% |
N.B. It’s important to note here that these returns are all based on average odds and that taking best prices could reasonably improve these returns by about 5%.
If you’d been backing the home teams in the Premier League following an away European game this season you’d have backed Man Utd’s win over Arsenal, Chelsea’s win over Man City, and City’s win over Utd amongst other results.
Home teams this weekend that played away in the Champions League in midweek are: Chelsea vs Southampton, Bayern v Eitracht Braunschweig, Schalke v Stuttgart, and Marseille v Montpellier. [Peter Webb] Not forgetting of course Man Utd‘s major performance mid-week, confidence should be following this weekend.
Category: Football trading strategies
