Champions league - Home or away 1st leg - any difference?

Liverpool Football Club - General Discussion

Postby Owzat » Thu Mar 12, 2009 12:31 pm

Playing home second leg is considered by most to be an advantage. I decided to check this out, never one to believe things are so readily true when it must surely matter who is involved, the 1st leg scoreline etc.

These figures include all two-legged knockout ties from the Champions League. There were none in the earliest days of the renamed competition, it goes all the way up to last night's 2nd legs.

Champions League - Two-Legged Knockout Stages

Home 1st leg wins tie : 51 (38.636%)
Away 1st leg wins tie : 76 (57.576%)
Goes to penalties*: 5 (3.788%)


*I've not split ties that went to penalties by who wins the tie, that's not going to have much bearing on whether playing home or away first is an advantage, and for such a small percentage is not going to influence the overall split much anyway. Four of the five games that went to penalties involved both sides winning their home ties by the same score. The other tie that went to penalties involved two 1-1 draws, between Lyon and PSV Eindhoven in 2004/05 - PSV went through on penalties.

I think the 1st leg score is crucial, the home side has to be solid defensively while getting a goal or two. The score from the 1st leg very much dictates how both sides have to go about the 2nd leg. Chelsea won the 1st leg 1-0, conceded a goal against Juventus in the 2nd leg to make it 1-1 on aggregate, but Chelsea knew an away goal would have Juventus in trouble. Once Chelsea got that away goal, Juventus needed to win on aggregate and that meant two clear goals.

1st Leg Away Goals - Who Wins?

0 away goals : Home 1st 28-19 Away 1st (3 penalty shootouts)
1 away goal : Home 1st 20-34 Away 1st (1 penalty shootout)
2 away goals : Home 1st 3-17 Away 1st (1 penalty shootout)
3+ away goals : Home 1st 0-6 Away 1st (0 penalty shootouts)


If the side playing the 1st leg at home keeps a clean sheet, they go through more often than they go out (59.57%, excluding penalty shootouts) Concede an away goal and it is more tricky, but even that doesn't make clear what is a good home result to take into the away leg. 15 of those 19 instances where the side playing the 1st leg away hasn't scored, but has gone through, were 0-0 draws. A lot of sides would settle for 0-0 away, but it happens only about every sixth tie.

Two-Legged Ties By 1st Leg Score

3-0 : Home 1st 1-0 Away 1st
4-1 : Home 1st 2-1 Away 1st
5-2 : Home 1st 1-0 Away 1st

2-0 : Home 1st 12-0 Away 1st
3-1 : Home 1st 5-1 Away 1st
4-2 : Home 1st 1-1 Away 1st

1-0 : Home 1st 8-4 Away 1st (3 penalty shootouts)
2-1 : Home 1st 4-8 Away 1st
3-2 : Home 1st 1-1 Away 1st (1 penalty shootout)

0-0 : Home 1st 6-15 Away 1st
1-1 : Home 1st 8-12 Away 1st (1 penalty shootout)
2-2 : Home 1st 1-5 Away 1st
3-3 : Home 1st 0-1 Away 1st

Away win : Home 1st 1-24 Away 1st


Deportivo lost their away leg 4-1 and won the 2nd leg 4-0, a very one-off occurence. Biggest home win in the 1st leg is 4-0 by Man Utd vs Porto, biggest away win was 5-0 by Bayern over Sporting Lisbon (12-1 aggregate)

Home draw - not a good result, surprisingly 1-1 works out better than 0-0. Draws in the 1st leg favour the away side 33-15 (about 2-1)
Win by three goals - with the odd exception, book your place in the next round (4-1 or 80.00% success)
Win by two goals - overwhelmingly in favour of the home side (22-3 or 88.00% success) 2-0 has not been overturned in the Champions League
Win by one goal - 1-0 gives you a fighting chance (8-4 or 66.67% success), otherwise advantage away side.

Away win - only once has a side lost a Champions League 1st leg home time and gone through - Ajax losing 0-1 to Panathanaikos, winning the 2nd leg 3-0 way back in the semi-final of 95/96 - Ajax lost the Final on penalties to Juventus.



Sides can settle for a 0-1 defeat away in the 1st leg, the above stats show that is not necessarily a great tactic and conceding a second has been terminal every time so far. So it isn't so much that playing home in the 2nd leg is a massive advantage, just that some scorelines favour it and that could simply be down to the two sides playing more than any mystical advantage. Even a single away goal helps the side playing away first, but perhaps the final split below shows how even that can be somewhat misleading

One Away Goal

Score to the home side

0-1 : Home 1st 1-12 Away 1st
1-1 : Home 1st 8-12 Away 1st (1 penalty shootout)
2-1 : Home 1st 4-8 Away 1st
3-1 : Home 1st 5-1 Away 1st
4-1 : Home 1st 2-1 Away 1st


So the away goal helped the side playing away 1st leg to go through 34 times, BUT 24 of those instances were a 1-0 win or 1-1 draw. Still it is 32-13 when the side playing away 1st leg scores one away goal and there's only one goal in it.
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