In Numbers: Europe’s Five Big Leagues at the Halfway Point of the Season

By: Jan | January 24th, 2008

The Bundesliga is still in hibernation, while all other big European leagues are already fully enjoying their second half of the season. It’s a little excercise in delayed gratification I guess. Here’s some numerical evidence to prove that it will at least be worth the wait. The numbers are coming from a Setanta Sports article and the January edition of the bundesliga.de newsletter.

2007/08	Goals/Game (06/07)	Goalless Draws	Hat-Tricks
Bundesliga	2.82 (2.74)	11	4
Premier League	2.72 (2.45)	14	6
Serie A	2.57 (2.55)	16	5
La Liga	2.57 (2.48)	16	2
Ligue 1	2.16 (2.25)	28	6

Good results in the entertainment department there. I can actually take the goals per game average stat one step further. Since its inception in 1963, the Bundesliga has topped this category in 40 out of 44 seasons - followed by the Premier League with three seasons and Ligue 1 with one season. The Bundesliga is currently on an 18 season unbeaten run. In 1989/1990 the Premier League last managed to one-up the Bundesliga with a season average of 2.59 vs. 2.58. Before that, it was back in 1969/1970 when Ligue 1 enjoyed a massive 3.17 goals per game (where did it go wrong from there?) vs. 3.10 in the Bundesliga. Some credit has to go to Werder Bremen, whose commitment to attacking football added 42 goals to the Bundesliga total - followed by some distance by Leverkusen (32) and Bayern Munich (31).

The Bundesliga also produced the fewest goalless draws and according to bundesliga.de also the lowest number of draws in general (22,9% of all matches). Thanks to Bayern Munich’s popularity a good portion of those goalless draws have been televised live around the globe to promote the league though…

There is some room for improvements in the hat-trick department. Exemplified by the fact, that Ivica Olic’s hat-trick for Hamburg against Stuttgart, was the first ever hat-trick scored by a Hamburg player.

2007/08	Goals to Shots Ratio	Shooting Accuracy	Penalty Success Rate
La Liga	13.18%	44.51%	76.60%
Premier League	13.08%	42.15%	73.68%
Bundesliga	12.28%	43.74%	90.62%
Serie A	12.09%	42.36%	75.93%
Ligue 1	10.87%	40.78%	75.00%

A midtable ranking in the goals to shots category. Luca Toni clearly can’t be blamed here, but just imagine what this stat would look like in a hypothetical Bundesliga without Schalke 04… According to bundesliga.de, a Bundesliga match sees the most shots on goal. On average 28.9 per match. Spain have the lowest average: 24.5 shots on goal during a match in the Primera Division.

Second in terms of shooting accuracy isn’t bad, though I don’t know what more to say about this. If I tried I’d probably bring up Schalke 04 again.

Now, the last stat is my favourite, and people who have based their whole view of the world around generlisations and stereotypes will love it. The English Premier League has the lowest penalty success rate at 73%, while the German Bundesliga’s stat of 90% sticks out like a sore thumb. Having said that, German referees are also less likely to give a penalty (just 1.9 times per matchday) - as in fewer chances to mess things up. And a good number of regular penalty takers (Ribery, Diego and van der Vaart…) aren’t German.

Now, after all this patting on the Bundesliga’s back and little moral victories, it’s time to come to a stat, that needs some improvements and has already been bemoaned by no other than the great Jogi Löw himself.

2007/08	% Passes in Defensive third
Ligue 1	17.81%
Bundesliga	16.43%
La Liga	16.03%
Serie A	14.90%
Premier League	14.83%

Premier League players know best, where the ball needs to go, while the Bundesliga players are more cautious. If I try to gloss over it, I may refer to Hertha’s coach Lucien Favre. He likes his teams to play an attractive attacking passing game, but has no problem allowing them to pass the ball back to the defense, as it’s all about finding opportunities. So yeah, that’s what Bundesliga teams are doing, they are trying to find opportunities. Though, they might also try and force them a bit more.

OK, this concludes this statistical marathon. It’s probably worth pointing out, that the Bundesliga also tops the average attendance figures again, with close to 40000 spectators per game, despite the absence of teams like Cologne and Gladbach. At the other end sit Serie A and Ligue 1, with average attendance numbers between 21000 and 22000 per match. In case of Ligue 1 it has more to do with the average stadium capacity though, while Serie A’s problem’s have been well publicised.