An analysis of sport succes in European football. Which are the most determinant performance indicators to be successful in the UEFA Champions League

Abstract

The football or soccer is known to be the most popular sport worldwide becoming thus subject of different investigations. The aim of this study was centered on its performance analysis: identifying the most determinant game related performance indicators to reach success in European football, taking as research objective the UEFA Champions League teams during 2003 – 2008 seasons. Thus, any soccer stakeholder could increase its understanding about decisive playing actions to compete and improve their performance analysis on this competition. This short research was based on Opta Sports data including as criteria’s 12 performance indicators and 4 goal variables. The results of the regression and ANOVA analysis showed that the most significant variables to achieve success were the scored goals, the realized shots, recovered balls, received goals at home and received shots on goal. Surprisingly, the possession is one of the least influential variables (together with committed fouls and red cards) despite recent focus on this way of playing promoted by teams as FC Barcelona or more recently Bayern München