Sports
Why missing Champions League can boost Premier League teams: What data shows
Everyone mocked him at the time, but Arsene Wenger had a point.
In 2012, after Arsenal lost to Sunderland in the FA Cup and while they were down 4-0 against AC Milan before the second leg of their round of 16 tie in the Champions League, Wenger solidified the focus for the rest of his team’s season. He said: “The first trophy is to finish in the top four.”
While this lack of ambition seemed to some like it was a cause of Arsenal’s then-seven-year trophy drought, that wasn’t quite true. The construction costs of Arsenal’s new stadium had hamstrung their ability to spend as much as Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea — Wenger was merely citing the economic reality in which he was living.
To have a shot at competing with those teams in the future, the Gunners needed to secure the extra millions of dollars in revenue generated from qualifying for the UEFA Champions League by finishing in the top four of the Premier League.
While you don’t get any silverware for finishing in the top four, finishing there was much more likely to lead to a Premier League or a Champions League title than winning the FA Cup or the League Cup. And if a top-four finish is more important than two of the competitions they hand out trophies for, well it kind of is its own trophy.
It’s not like we don’t treat it as such, either — the top-four race is one of the three ways we give texture to each season along with the title race and the relegation battle. (I don’t think it was done on purpose, but I applaud our collective hive mind for not settling on “race” to describe a competition between teams that are trying to avoid, rather than achieve, something.)
Even with the added guarantee of a fifth Champions League spot for the Premier League, this season hasn’t been any different. From here on, Manchester United, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Chelsea will mainly be judged by whether or not they secure one of the five spots. As Liverpool manager Arne Slot put it back in February: “If we don’t have Champions League football, it’s definitely not been an acceptable season. … That does have an enormous impact on the way this club is run.”
The impact on revenue is massive, but in the world of fixture bloat and player burnout, might there be a hidden benefit to missing out on the world’s most prestigious competition for a season? After all, Man United and Aston Villa, two of the teams in the current top four, aren’t playing in the Champions League this year.
Maybe missing out on the Champions League isn’t such a terrible thing for Premier League teams after all?
• Premier League without set-piece goals: What would the table look like?
• Tracker: Champions League qualification, Premier League relegation
• 2026 World Cup squads ranked: All 48 national teams
The economic impact of missing out on the Champions League
Let’s take Liverpool as an example.
After nearly winning the quadruple in the 2021-22 season, everything fell apart the following year. Jurgen Klopp’s team finished fifth — the first, and only time, in his eight full seasons at the club when they didn’t qualify for the Champions League.
The impact here is pretty straightforward. Per data from Kieron O’Connor’s excellent Swiss Ramble, here’s the club’s broadcast revenue from European competition in all of Klopp’s full seasons at the club:
• 2016-17: none
• 2017-18: €81 million
• 2018-19: €111 million
• 2019-20: €80 million
• 2020-21: €88 million
• 2021-22: €120 million
• 2022-23: €84 million
• 2023-24: €27 million
In 2016-17, Liverpool weren’t in Europe competition at all, and in 2023-24, they were in the Europa League. As Slot said in February: “When I arrived here and only signed Federico Chiesa, it was after a Europa League season.”
This is true, and less revenue means less money to spend on improving the team. But what’s interesting is that Slot is suggesting that the financial impact from missing out on the Champions League actually comes a year later. The transfer spending at the club suggests as much, too.
The €12 million deal for Chiesa was Liverpool’s only permanent move in the summer of 2024. But after the disappointing 2022-23 campaign, Liverpool spent €172 million combined (per Transfermarkt) on the acquisitions of Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister, Ryan Gravenberch and Wataru Endo ahead of a season without Champions League matches.
Don’t forget: They also agreed to a nine-figure, Premier League-record deal with Brighton for Moisés Caicedo, who instead decided to join Chelsea — another club that failed to qualify for the Champions League after four consecutive top-four finishes.
Now, I’m not totally convinced that Liverpool only cut their spending in 2024 because of the lack of Champions League revenue from the preceding season. They also signed current backup goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili from Valencia to a deal to be made permanent the following season. They had agreed to sign Martín Zubimendi from Real Sociedad too, only for him to make a last-second U-turn and stay in Spain for another season before joining Arsenal this past summer. Plus, they also had to sort out the contract situations for their three best and most expensive players: Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Unlike in 2012, when clubs such as Arsenal were competing financially with the top four teams in all of Europe’s other major leagues and added European revenue might mean you would sign someone who otherwise would’ve went to AC Milan, the biggest Premier League clubs are now only really competing with Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain for talent. The rest of the Premier League is competing with the top-four teams in all of Europe’s major leagues now.
The combined commercial and broadcasting revenues generated by the topflight in England means that losing out on Champions League revenue, on average, isn’t as painful as it used to be. In 2022-23, Liverpool and Chelsea ranked seventh and ninth, respectively, in global revenue among all clubs. In 2023-24, with neither club in the Champions League, they ranked eighth and 10th.
The potential benefit of not being able to win the Champions League
In 2016-17, with Liverpool rebounding into the top four after an eighth-place finish and Chelsea winning the Premier League title after a 10th-place finish the previous season, a new theory seemed to emerge: Not having to play in the Champions League was actually beneficial for your Premier League performance.
To test this, a trained astrophysicist and Harvard professor wrote a blog post where he looked at the relationship between the season-to-season change in European matches played by a given team and the season-to-season change in Premier League points won.
“[For] each extra game a team plays in Europe, they can expect to lose half a point relative to the previous season,” he wrote. “So, if a team plays 12 more games, it will be 6 points worse off [on average] than the previous season.”
The author, funnily enough, was Laurie Shaw, who now holds the title of “chief scientist” at Liverpool. At the time Shaw wrote the piece, a number of other analyses had determined that there was no “hangover effect” for teams playing in Europe. In other words, teams that had just played a match in Europe didn’t perform worse than expected in their following Premier League match. Shaw’s work suggested that there’s a kind of cumulative effect from extra devoting resources — energy, strategy, travel, etc. — to European matches.
Last month, the blogger Markstats looked at the past three seasons and found there still to be no clear hangover effect in the Premier League. Since we can’t ask Shaw to just rerun his analysis for every season since 2016-17, I decided to do it — but only with Champions League matches.
This is how it looks when you plot all of the pairs of seasons when a team competed in the Champions League in at least one of them:
While it’s not a strong relationship, it’s close to the same relationship that Shaw observed in 2016. You can see it in the downward slope of the trendline.
Based on this data: For every extra Champions League game a team plays, they lose a little more than a third of a point on average. So, every three extra games in the Champions League are worth about one point in the Premier League table. And if we remove last season, when the total number of Champions League games increased for everyone, then the numbers match Shaw’s — a point lost for every two extra Champions League games played.
Now, there are lots of confounding factors here. When some teams miss the Champions League, they’ve usually been unlucky to an unsustainable degree. The same goes in the other direction: Sometimes teams qualify for the Champions League because of unsustainable hot streaks. How much of this is inevitable regression to the mean? And how much of this is a genuine decline in performance related to the extra intense games on your schedule?
But at the very least, there’s something here. It seems reasonable to expect the best teams to actually play more games in the Champions League, so the fact that on average teams perform better in the Premier League while playing fewer Champions League games suggests to me that there is a real negative effect of the added toll of extra high-level matches.
I also looked at the total number of games played from season to season across all competitions, and there’s basically no relationship to changes in points, so that suggests there’s something about the Champions League in particular that affects domestic performance.
Of course, it would be absurd to say that it’s better not to be in the Champions League. We don’t watch or care about sports because of the financial results they produce — the finances help produce the results and get produced by the results. The point of all of this is to try to win things like the Champions League and the Premier League. The way you do that is by, you know, actually participating in the Champions League.
But I do think we’ve potentially entered a stage of the Premier League’s growth where the teams are so rich, and the competition is so grueling, that there’s potential for a one-year exponential boost for a club that drops out of the competition. You’ll still have lots of money to spend on your roster because of the European revenue from the previous season, you’re probably going to have some better luck going forward, and you’ll get a full season without the potentially deleterious effects of all those midweek Champions League matches.
Whoever misses out on the top five this season would seem like a logical pick to bounce back into the Champions League places next year. So, Liverpool or Chelsea fans: There’s something that might be able to help you sleep at night.
Sports
Transfer rumors, news: Bayern eye move for Newcastle’s Gordon
Bayern Munich have made signing Newcastle United winger Anthony Gordon a priority, while Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea are among the clubs keen on Newcastle midfielder Lewis Miley. Join us for the latest transfer news and rumors from around the globe.
Transfers home page | Men’s winter grades | Women’s grades
TRENDING RUMORS
– Newcastle winger Anthony Gordon is a priority for Bayern Munich and a deal could be worth around €60 million, reports Sky Germany. There have already been concrete talks between Bayern and the 25-year-old’s representatives, and he is the Bavarians’ first choice to challenge Luis Díaz for a starting spot in Vincent Kompany’s XI. Barcelona and Arsenal have also been linked, but the Magpies are determined to keep the England international.
– Newcastle midfielder Lewis Miley has received attention ahead of the summer, with Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea among the clubs interested in signing him, according to TEAMtalk. Despite the interest, Newcastle value the 19-year-old highly as part of their long-term plans, especially as they are facing high-profile speculation about the futures of Bruno Guimarães, Sandro Tonali, Tino Livramento, Anthony Gordon and Nick Woltemade.
– Real Madrid are one of the clubs who can trigger a release clause of between €50 million-€60 million in Nico Schlotterbeck‘s new contract with Borussia Dortmund, according to Sky Germany. The clause specifies that the Germany center back can depart for a set fee, but it can only be triggered by certain clubs, with Bayern Munich not one of them. The 26-year-old’s new contract runs until 2031 and is worth a gross total of €14 million-per-year in wages, making him one of Dortmund’s highest earners.
– Bayern Munich are in the race to sign Bayer Leverkusen striker Christian Kofane but fear strong competition from Arsenal, according to Christian Falk. Bayern are expected to look for a back-up striker to Harry Kane this summer, especially with Nicolas Jackson set to return to Chelsea after his loan expires, and the 19-year-old is one of many names on their short list. Hoffenheim’s Fisnik Asllani is also on Bayern’s list of options, but the club will move for a left winger and a right back before bringing in a striker.
– TEAMtalk suggests that Liverpool and Manchester United have been watching RB Leipzig for some time as they scout winger Yan Diomande, but their attention has now also turned to left back David Raum. Both clubs are looking for a player in his position with the Red Devils actively wanting to bring in competition for Luke Shaw, while the Reds are preparing for Andy Robertson to leave as a free agent.
EXPERT TAKE
1:33
Would Neymar join FC Cincinnati?
Gab & Juls discuss Neymar’s potential transfer to FC Cincinnati.
OTHER RUMORS
– Angelo Stiller will leave Stuttgart for around €60 million, with Liverpool keeping an eye on the midfielder’s progress. (Football Insider)
– Everton plan to keep Jack Grealish once the winger’s loan from Manchester City has come to an end. (TEAMtalk)
– Manchester United will have to pay over £40 million to sign Monaco attacking midfielder Maghnes Akliouche in the summer. (Football Insider)
– Aston Villa are planning to reignite their interest in Crystal Palace striker Jean-Philippe Mateta. (Football Insider)
– Real Madrid are planning for striker Gonzalo Garcia to leave the club during the summer transfer window. (Athletic)
– Brighton & Hove Albion are considering various goalkeeper options as Bart Verbruggen has interesting enquiries and could leave the club. (Florian Plettenberg)
– Roma will trigger their €25 million option to permanently sign Donyell Malen from Aston Villa if the conditions for the obligation aren’t met. (Nicolo Schira)
– Juventus’ obligation to permanently sign Lois Openda from RB Leipzig has been triggered with the total package coming to €46 million plus his wages, but they will still try to offload the striker this summer. (Fabrizio Romano)
– Swansea City are demanding £15m from clubs looking to sign striker Zan Vipotnik amid growing interest from Brighton & Hove Albion and other Premier League clubs. (Football Insider)
– Hoffenheim center back Ozan Kabak‘s new contract includes a clause that would allow him to leave for €25 million in the summer of 2027, and he is aiming for a Premier League move. (Florian Plettenberg)
– AC Milan aren’t satisfied with Pervis Estupinan‘s performances and are happy to let the left back leave in the summer. (Nicolo Schira)
– Wolfsburg are working intensively to sign Augsburg midfielder Elvis Rexhbecaj with Union Berlin also interested. (Florian Plettenberg)
Sports
Mascherano quits as Inter Miami coach, 4 months after MLS title
MIAMI — Javier Mascherano has quit as Inter Miami CF head coach, just four months after guiding the club to its first MLS Cup title.
Miami said in a statement Tuesday that the Argentine coach had stepped down for “personal reasons.”
– MLS Power Rankings: LAFC’s first loss of 2026 knocks them off the top
– Messi denied late, Miami still winless at new home
Mascherano officially communicated his decision to the club following Saturday’s 2-2 home draw against the New York Red Bulls, a source confirmed to ESPN.
The club said that Guillermo Hoyos will take over as head coach of the first team for “the upcoming matches,” moving over from his current role of sporting director.
“I want to let everyone know that, for personal reasons, I have decided to end my tenure as head coach of Inter Miami CF,” Mascherano said in a statement.
“First and foremost, I would like to thank the Club for the trust they placed in me, every employee who is part of the organization for the collective effort, but especially the players, who made it possible for us to experience unforgettable moments.”
Mascherano, a former teammate of Miami star Lionel Messi with Argentina and Barcelona, spent almost a year and a half at the helm after replacing Gerardo “Tata” Martino in November 2024.
The former Argentina under-20 coach led Inter Miami to the Concacaf Champions Cup semifinal and the Leagues Cup final, and he made history when lifting the MLS Cup during his first year with the club in 2025.
Miami is third in the Eastern Conference through seven games of the 2026 season but exited the Concacaf Champions Cup via a loss to Nashville SC.
The move comes not even two weeks after Inter Miami opened its new stadium near Miami International Airport. The club has tied its first two matches in the new facility.
“Javier will forever be part of this Club’s history and will always hold a special place in the Inter Miami CF family,” Inter Miami owner Jorge Mas said. “Not only for being a key part of unforgettable achievements, such as winning the MLS Cup and the team’s historic performance at the Club World Cup, but also for the example he set through his dedication and daily work leading the team.
“We respect his decision and are deeply grateful for everything he contributed, wishing him nothing but the very best in his professional and personal future.”
Hoyos comes into the role after working as a coach and sporting director in leagues across the world including Liga MX and serving as Bolivia national team head coach. Chief soccer officer Alberto Marrero will assume Hoyos’ previous responsibilities as sporting director of the club.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Sports
Liverpool’s star power can’t match PSG’s in Champions League
LIVERPOOL, England — In the end, Liverpool‘s latest European odyssey ended not with a bang, but with a whimper.
The second leg of the Reds’ UEFA Champions League quarterfinal tie with Paris Saint-Germain had all the ingredients to be a European classic, and in many ways it delivered. The Anfield crowd was at its vicious, vociferous best as momentum swung between two sides capable, to varying degrees, of genuine excellence. Liverpool — who for much of this term have looked a pale imitation of the side that romped to last season’s Premier League title — ran and slid and pumped their fists as they sought to overturn a daunting 2-0 first-leg deficit.
But, just as they were at the Parc des Princes last week, PSG were simply too good. The European champions were made to suffer at times on Tuesday night, but they held their nerve. And when chances arose to underscore their dominance in this tie, Ousmane Dembélé seized them, scoring twice in the second half to send the French side through to the semifinals with a 2-0 win and a 4-0 aggregate victory.
Moments after the Ballon d’Or winner had netted the visitors’ second of the evening, Florian Wirtz lashed a wild effort over the bar for Liverpool to a chorus of jeers from the traveling PSG fans. In many ways, the sequence encapsulated the current disparity between the two sides.
– Despite Yamal’s form, Atleti wash away Barça out of Champions League
– Gündogan Awards: Kane, Putellas, Modric lead 2025-26 class
– Why Klopp, Luis Enrique are the only managers to fix Real Madrid
PSG have struck the perfect blend of arrogance and humility. They are totally assured of their own brilliance but possess the alacrity to back up the hype by leaving everything out on the pitch.
Like Liverpool, they are a side are packed with star power. Yet while PSG boss Luis Enrique has been able to corral his players into one glittering constellation, Arne Slot has yet to imbue his team with the confidence to truly sparkle. Still, it was telling that there were no signs of mutiny at the final whistle, even as the wind and rain swirled around Anfield.
Instead, the majority of Liverpool supporters stayed behind and applauded in recognition of a battling display from their side. The hosts generated an expected goals (xG) value of 1.94 compared to the visitors’ 1.25, had 21 shots compared to PSG’s 12 and recorded more than double the amount of touches in the opposition box.
Had PSG center back Marquinhos not slid in at the last to deny Virgil van Dijk a certain goal in the first half, or had Liverpool’s penalty for a challenge on Alexis Mac Allister not been overturned in the second, the outcome could have been very different. But, ultimately, fortune did not favor Slot’s side.
That, too, has been an enduring theme of Liverpool’s season. So many times, when it has looked as if the Reds have managed to pick themselves up and dust themselves off, the fates have conspired to send them tumbling back onto the canvas.
Here, the withdrawal of Hugo Ekitike after half an hour with what looked like a serious injury presented yet another setback for Liverpool to overcome. Before Tuesday, the French attacker had shared the pitch for only 88 minutes with fellow summer signings Wirtz and Alexander Isak, who was handed his first start in more than four months against PSG after recovering from a broken leg. That the trio have so seldom been afforded the chance to forge a connection reflects the tribulations Slot has had to contend with this term, with the Dutchman now unlikely to have all three players available before the end of the campaign.
On his return to the starting lineup, Isak struggled to showcase the quality that saw Liverpool splash a British-record £125 million on him last summer, enjoying just five touches before his withdrawal at the break. With nothing to lose in the second half, the Reds attacked with a fervor that has evaded them for much of the season, but a cocktail of poor finishing and fine goalkeeping from Matvei Safonov denied them the opportunity to truly set this contest alight.
“Of course, we are very disappointed because I think there were parts of the second half where you could feel, ‘If we could just score now, this could become a very special night’,” Slot said in his postmatch news conference. “But the future looks very bright for this team, for this club. We have showed we can compete with the champions of Europe in our stadium. To be the dominant team, not many teams can be dominant against PSG and create as many chances as we did. Creating chances is one thing, scoring is a second.”
While Slot will be left to rue his team falling foul of the fine margins, the external clamor surrounding his future will no doubt continue to swell as Liverpool brace for their first trophyless season since 2021. The Reds have lost 17 of their 50 games in all competitions and must successfully navigate a tricky run of fixtures — starting with this weekend’s visit to Merseyside rivals Everton — if they are to be playing in the Champions League again next season.
For Liverpool, it is now top five or bust. With no Champions League miracle to cling to, even that might not be enough to convince supporters that Slot should still be in the dugout the next time Anfield plays host to one of Europe’s elite.
-
Fashion1 week agoIndia’s exports face reset as EU links trade to carbon metrics: EY
-
Entertainment1 week agoQueen Elizabeth II emotional message for Archie, Lilibet sparks speculation
-
Tech7 days agoAs the Strait of Hormuz Reopens, Global Shipping Will Take Months to Recover
-
Entertainment1 week agoLamar Odom shocking response to Khloé Kardashian account of his overdose
-
Tech7 days agoAzure customers up in arms over ‘full’ UK South region | Computer Weekly
-
Fashion1 week agoCII submits 20-pt agenda to Indian govt to back firms hit by Iran war
-
Tech6 days agoThis AI Button Wearable From Ex-Apple Engineers Looks Like an iPod Shuffle
-
Tech1 week agoA Single Strike Won’t Shut Off the Gulf’s Desalination System
