The Champions League group stage as we know it comes to an end this week, not just for the season — but for good.
A new format — involving 36 clubs — will be introduced for the 2024-25 campaign onwards, which means the system that has been in place from the 2003-04 season (eight groups of four teams with home and away ties against the other three sides, and with the top two qualifying for the knockout stage) will be over.
So, The Athletic has taken a look at the numbers from the 21 seasons of Champions League single group-stage football to have been played since the current format’s introduction in 2003-04.
What is the biggest win? Who has scored more at this stage of the competition — Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi? What are the highest and lowest-scoring groups? Which team has gone through with the fewest points?
(Editor’s note: All data is from 2003-04 onwards, when this system was introduced).
Real Madrid are the only club to have played in all 21 seasons of the Champions League under its current format, with the Spanish side winning the trophy five times in this period.
Barcelona and Bayern Munich have played in the second-highest number of campaigns, with each club missing out just once — the Spaniards in 2003-04 and the Germans in 2007-08. It is probably not a coincidence that 2003-04 was the season before Lionel Messi made his Barcelona debut.
Four clubs have scored more than 200 goals in the groups, with Real Madrid’s 299 the most. Jude Bellingham will be looking to make that 300 on Tuesday night away against Union Berlin, with the Englishman having scored four times so far in this season’s competition.
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Porto, with 176, are the club from outside Europe’s ‘big five’ leagues with the most goals. The Portuguese side won the Champions League in 2003-04, which as mentioned, was the first season under the current format.
Manchester United, who need to beat Bayern at Old Trafford on Tuesday to have any chance of going through to this season’s knockout stage, are in danger of being leapfrogged by local rivals Manchester City in terms of goals scored in the group stage.
United have scored 175 times compared to City’s 173, this is despite City playing in Europe’s premier club competition in four fewer seasons over this period (13 to United’s 17).
When it comes to the club with the most wins, it is German giants Bayern who lead the way — not Madrid.
Chelsea are the English club to have won the most games. Twelve different managers have contributed to the London club’s 66 victories.
Bayern’s total is bolstered by three campaigns in which they won all six group matches — a feat that has become more common in recent years.
In the first 11 seasons of the competition’s existing format, a team won all of their group games just once (Madrid in 2011-12). Yet in the nine completed seasons since then (2014-15 to 2022-23), it has been done six times.
If Madrid and City — each with five wins out of five so far — both win over the next two days, then that figure will rise to eight over the last 10 seasons and nine overall.
It is worth noting that only one of the seven instances of a team winning all six group games has seen that club go on and win the competition: Bayern in their treble-winning 2019-20 season.
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Below is every time a club has won all six group games from 2003-04 onwards:
To surely no one’s surprise, Messi and Ronaldo are the highest-scoring players in the group stage since 2003, with the Argentinian’s 80 goals leading the way — seven more than Ronaldo.
Messi scored 71 of his goals for Barcelona and nine for Paris Saint-Germain and Ronaldo scored 55 for Real Madrid, 11 for Manchester United and seven for Juventus.
Of the 10 top scorers, only Robert Lewandowski is playing in this year’s competition. The Barcelona forward has scored once in the 2023-24 groups — against Royal Antwerp in September.
As for assists, it is Messi and Ronaldo on top again, but this time with Angel Di Maria in third place.
Unlike Messi and Ronaldo, the Benfica winger is playing in the 2023-24 Champions League — with four appearances so far, but no goals or assists.
Messi, Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Neymar are the five players who appear in the top 10 on both lists.
Ibrahimovic is the only one of those five to never have won the Champions League, but he does hold the record of playing for the most clubs (seven) in the group stage since 2003-04.
The Swede has appeared for Ajax, Juventus, Inter Milan, Barcelona, AC Milan, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United in the groups. This is two more clubs than any other player.
The biggest win recorded in the groups in this period was 8-0 — by Liverpool against Turkish side Besiktas in November 2007 and Madrid against Swedish club Malmo in December 2015.
Yossi Benayoun scored a hat-trick for Liverpool in that game and Cristiano Ronaldo (four goals) and Karim Benzema netted trebles for Madrid in the thrashing they handed out.
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Ronaldo’s hat-trick was his fourth (and last) in the groups, but he scored four in the knockout stage after that.
The overall highest-scoring game featured 12 goals — Borussia Dortmund’s 8-4 victory over Legia Warsaw in 2016-17. In total, there have been six games featuring nine goals or more at this stage of the competition.
The highest number of goals scored in a group across all of the matches is 53, which is an average of 4.4 per game. That was in Group B in 2019-20, with the final standings below. Only Roma in 2015-16 (16) conceded more goals in their group than Tottenham’s 14 here but still went through.
At the other end of the scale, the fewest goals scored in a group is 12 — an average of just one per game. This came in the 2005-06 season with Villarreal, Benfica, Lille and Manchester United the culprits. Five of the 12 matches finished 0-0 and just three games saw both teams score.
Here is how the group finished, with Villarreal top after scoring just three goals in their six matches and Lille being eliminated despite conceding only twice and keeping four clean sheets (remember Roma went through in 2015-16 conceding 14 more goals than this).
The highest number of points won by a team that didn’t finish first or second is Napoli’s 12 in the 2013-14 season. Rafael Benitez’s team won four of their six matches but were eliminated due to their inferior head-to-head records against Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal.
The fewest points to see a team through to the knockout stage is six — by Zenit Saint Petersburg in 2013-14 and the aforementioned Roma in 2015-16. Manchester United, heading into their final game of this season’s groups on four points, can take heart.
If United score four times in their game against Bayern at Old Trafford and still go out, they will equal the unwanted record of the most goals scored by a team in the groups to be eliminated. Chelsea and Red Bull Salzburg with 16 in 2012-13 and 2019-20 respectively is the current mark.
The 2013-14 season saw Galatasaray advance from the groups with a goal difference of -6, which is the lowest registered by a team go through. The Turkish club lost 1-6 and 4-1 to Madrid but advanced as a result of an 85th-minute Wesley Sneijder goal against Juventus in their final match (with the game delayed by a day due to heavy snow in Istanbul).
Carlo Ancelotti’s Madrid topped that group and registered a goal difference of 15, while Antonio Conte’s Juventus came third with a goal difference of 0.
And finally, here are the nine countries that have had just one club play in the Champions League under its existing format. None of these teams have got out of the groups in this time.
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Azerbaijan
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Bate Borisov
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Dinamo Zagreb
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Kazakhstan
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Sheriff Tiraspol
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Legia Warsaw
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