Which Is Harder to Win: The Champions League or the Premier League?

Rayand, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Two of the most prestigious competitions in football are the Champions League and the Premier League. Each season, the top four English teams qualify for Europe’s biggest competition. This gives them the opportunity to go toe-to-toe with the most elite teams from around the continent.

Many fans and pundits have discussed which is harder to win: the Champions League or the Premier League? In this article, we discuss this topic in full, exploring the different challenges faced when trying to win each competition in order to find the answer. Read on if you want to learn more about this interesting football debate.

Which Is Harder to Win: The Champions League or the Premier League?

The Premier League is harder to win than the Champions League because teams are required to be consistently good for 38 matches a season, rather than just 13 matches during a tournament.

Challenges of Winning the Champions League

Firstly, let’s look at the challenges of winning Europe’s top prize, the Champions League. All the top teams across Europe want to win this coveted trophy each season, so it must be difficult to win, right? Well, some of the key challenges of this competition include: quality of teams, unpredictability of knockout rounds, injuries, refereeing decisions and impact of travel.

Quality of Teams

The first key challenge of winning the Champions League is the quality of teams involved in the competition. You’re likely to see Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Manchester United and many more elite sides competing each season (with some exceptions).

Unlike a league competition, teams may have to play better opponents from other leagues, which can make winning the trophy difficult. It’s normal for the best players across the world to play in one of the top 5 leagues in Europe (Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1), so we’ve seen the likes of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Karim Benzema all regularly play in the competition.

Of course, the nature of a knockout tournament can mean that some teams are able to avoid some of the big hitters, but it’s likely that, in order to win the tournament, you’ll have to play one or two of the top, top teams along the way.

Unpredictability of Knockout Rounds

A key difference between the Champions League and the Premier League, is the fact that the Champions League is a knockout competition. It is the knockout nature of the tournament that can become a huge challenge for clubs in their efforts to win it.

The unpredictability of knockout matches can scare the most tactical managers, even if ties are played across two legs. Any team can have an off day, and if that day happens to fall during a knockout tie, your side could easily ruin their chances of winning the Champions League.

Injuries

Like any competition, injuries can become a huge obstacle for teams striving to win the Champions League. If a side is good enough to go into the latter stages of the Champions League, they’re likely to become a casualty to fixture congestion.

Fixture congestion can present itself if a side does well in both domestic and European competitions, as they’ll have to play a number of games each week in order to compete in all of them. If a squad doesn’t have much depth, it’s common for their players to pick up injuries. The more injuries a squad experiences, the less chance they’ll have of winning the Champions Leagues.

The sides with the greatest squads and squad depths, who are also managed well, have the highest chance of succeeding.

Refereeing Decisions

Another key challenge of winning the Champions League are refereeing decisions. Referees are liable for bad decisions in any competition, and European competitions are no different. Although VAR has been put in place to help referees make the right decisions, that’s not always possible.

If a team is caught on the wrong side of a refereeing decision during a knockout match, they might not be able to recover from it, which will result in their exit from the competition. This is different to the Premier League, where teams are likely to have many more matches to try and claw back any lost points from refereeing decisions.

Impact of Travel

Travel can become problematic for clubs competing in the Champions League. Players can find themselves constantly on the move, from away league matches to away Champions League matches. These European games mean that they have to travel via plane, and this will disrupt their ability to sleep and recoup after matches.

This will in turn have a negative effect on players’ performances, especially if they are caught in a vicious cycle of away matches. Unfortunately, there’s not much that teams can do other than trying to have as much squad depth as possible, as they’ll be able to call upon more players across the season to help them achieve the best results.

Challenges of Winning the Premier League

Now let’s have a look at the different challenges facing teams when trying to win the Premier League. These include – length of competition, physicality and intensity, injuries, refereeing decisions and fixture congestion.

Length of Competition

Firstly, the length of the Premier League season is a huge challenge for sides when striving to win the competition. With there being 20 teams in the Premier League, each side has to play 38 matches each season (19 at home and 19 away).

The winner of the league will be the team with the most points at the end of the 38 game weeks, and this means that these teams have to perform consistently for a long period of time. With 19 other teams vying for the same outcome, the Premier League is one of the most competitive domestic leagues on the planet.

Physicality and Intensity

Another challenge faced by a side wanting to win the Premier League is its physicality and intensity. The English top tier is well renowned for its physical nature and intensity, and it takes a certain calibre of player to meet the physical demands of the league. If sides don’t have the right squads to compete across the long season, they’re likely to fall short in their attempts to win the league.

Injuries

Physicality and intensity go hand in hand with injuries, which provides another key challenge for Premier League teams. It’s common for teams to experience several injuries throughout a season, and if key players become injured, their chances of winning the league dwindle significantly.

A great example of this was during the 2020/21 season when champions Liverpool were hoping to retain the title, however they were struck with an injury crisis. Injuries to key players, particularly those that could play at centre back, including Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Joel Matip and Fabinho meant that they finished 3rd.

Not only did they finish 3rd, but they ended the season 17 points behind league winners Manchester City. This goes to show the impact that having several injuries can have across a Premier League season.

Refereeing Decisions

Again, similarly to the Champions League, refereeing decisions can have a huge impact on a Premier League team’s season. Even though there isn’t a knockout element to Premier League matches, an incorrect refereeing decisions could result in a team dropping 2 or 3 points.

These dropped points could be the difference of a team finishing 2nd or 1st.

Fixture Congestion

Premier League fixture congestion is another big challenge for clubs, particularly those with smaller squads or teams with lots of injuries. It’s common for side’s to play 2 league matches a week towards the latter stages of the season, with other competitions in full flow.

The more fixtures that a team has to play in a short space of time, the less likely they’re going to be able to play at their best. A few off days during midweek fixtures can mean that the top clubs drop points at vital parts of the season.

Managers including Jürgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola, José Mourinho and Erik ten Hag have made their feelings around fixture congestion well known to the media and competition officials in recent years.

Comparison of Difficulty

When comparing the difficulty of the Champions League and the Premier League, there are two key areas to look at – consistency vs knockout elements and level of competition.

Consistency vs Knockout Performances

When deciding which is harder to win: the Champions League or the Premier League, the main consideration has to be around consistency vs knockout performances. In order to win the Premier League, a team is required to be consistent for 38 matches, whereas in order to win the Champions League, a team has to be consistent for 13 matches.

With 6x group games, 2x round of 16 legs, 2x quarter-final legs, 2 semi-final legs and a final, there is potentially 25 matches difference between both campaigns. On this basis, it would be logical to say that it’s easier to win the Champions League. However, knockout football is a different kind of beast, and a strong mentality is required in order to keep succeeding in the several knockout ties throughout the tournament.

On the other hand, we believe that the Premier League is much harder to win, as the ability to be consistently good for 38 matches should not be underestimated.

Level of Competition

The level of competition is the second key area to assess when comparing the difficulty of the Champions League and the Premier League. Although there is a lot more quality in the Champions League, with Europe’s best teams competing each season, some teams may avoid playing these quality teams due to the different draws that take place.

In contrast, every team has to play each other twice in the Premier League, and with it being known as one of the most competitive leagues in the world, this makes the Premier League much harder to win in our eyes.

Conclusion

The Champions League and Premier League are two of the most coveted honours in world football. Both operate using a different format, which has led people to question the difficulty of winning each competition.

In The Elastico’s opinion, the consistency required to win the Premier League and the fact that each team has to play each other twice makes it harder to win than the Champions League. We do appreciate that some people may disagree with this, as the nature of knockout football and the difficulty of some Champions League’s campaigns over the years have proven it to be the more difficult competition.

With various factors including travel, injuries and refereeing decisions affecting each competition’s outcome, it’s a tricky question to answer, so it’s not surprising that it’s heavily debated amongst football enthusiasts.

Frequently Asked Questions