Does winning your Champions League group make any difference make any difference to how far a team goes?
With qualification for the last 16 long since sewn up like the seasoned Champions League veterans that they are, Manchester City and Manchester United could be forgiven for viewing Wednesday’s final group games as an unwanted additional burden in the busiest month of the season.
Yet Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho, with two winners’ medals apiece, ought to need no reminding of the advantage that finishing top of their groups can bestow. Both City and United can do so, depending on their results against Hoffenheim and Valencia respectively.
The statistical evidence in favour of advancing as group winners is persuasive. Since the current format of the competition was introduced in 2003-04, 77 per cent of the teams who went on to reach the final had finished top of their group.
That trend is not restricted to finalists. Some 75 per cent of semi-finalists were group winners, as were 71 per cent of quarter-finalists. In other words, finishing position in the group stage is a reliable predictor of whether a team will go deep into the knockout stage.
City have a better chance of topping their group than their Manchester rivals. The Premier League champions will clinch first place as long as they avoid defeat at home to Hoffenheim. They can even win Group F if they lose, as long as Lyon don’t win at Shakhtar Donetsk.
In United’s case, only a win against Valencia in Spain will give them a chance of snatching top spot from Juventus – and even then, only in the unlikely event that the Serie A leaders fail to overcome Young Boys, who have taken just one point from five games so far.
There is reason to retain hope should City or United have to settle for the runner-up spot, however: the advantage enjoyed by group winners in the knockout rounds drops to 67 per cent in the final. That is in part down to Real Madrid’s triumphs in the last two seasons, which came despite the Spanish giants finishing second in their groups.