REAL MADRID, Manchester City and Inter Milan may get all of the headlines in European football, but some of the continent’s smaller clubs came out of 2023-24 with the best playing records around.
Welsh champions The New Saints went through their Cymru Premier programme unbeaten, with 30 wins (a win rate of 93.8%) from 32 games, 92 points, 117 goals and only 18 conceded. They finished 33 points clear of second-placed club Connah’s Quay. The only other league champions who went unbeaten were Bayer Leverkusen, who unseated Bayern Munich after more than a decade and also won the DFB Pokal and reached the Europa League final. While New Saints have won 15 league titles in the last 20 years, Leverkusen secured their first ever Bundesliga crown in 2023-24. They won 28 of 34 games, a win rate of 82.4%.
Bayer Leverkusen had the best win-rate of all “big five” clubs, followed by Inter Milan and Real Madrid (76.3%) and the Premier League duo, Manchester City and Arsenal as well as Barcelona, all on 73.7%.
Gibraltar and San Marino are places that rarely get a mention when it comes to football but both have teams that know how to win games. Gibraltar’s Lincoln Red Imps have won nine of the 11 campaigns since UEFA acceptance. In 2023-24, they had a win rate of 85% in the league and also won the Rock Cup to complete the double. The league runners-up, St. Joseph’s, are Gibraltar’s oldest existing football club. They had a win rate of 80%. San Marino’s best performing club in 2023-24 was Virtus, who won 26 of their 30 games.
PSV Eindhoven won the Dutch Eredivisie with 29 wins from 34 (a win rate of 85.3%) and an impressive 111 goals. They finished seven points ahead of Feyenoord, who only lost twice and scored 92 goals. Feyenoord won the KNVB Cup and beat PSV on route to the final.
The top teams in Turkey, Galatasaray and Fenerbahce, were firing away on all cylinders for much of the season. Galatasaray won 33 of their 38 games (86.8%) and scored 92 goals on their way to accumulating 102 points, a points-per-game rate of 2.68. Their Istanbul rivals, Fenerbahce, scored 99 goals and were three points behind the champions with a win rate of 81.6%.
Sporting Clube de Portugal won the Primeira Liga by 10 points, ahead of Benfica, and reached 90 points. They lost just twice and won 34 of 29 games (85.3% win rate). Their 96 goals represented 2.824 per game.
Red Star Belgrade won both the Serbian Superliga – by an 18-point margin – and cup. Sturm Graz were another double winner, but they also outperformed Red Bull Salzburg, even though their win rate was slightly lower than the reigning champions. Azerbaijan’s top club, Qarabag, had a 25-point margin over the second-placed club. As well as comfortably winning the league with 2.7 goals per game, Qarabag also won the cup. Other doubles were won by Kosovo’s Ballkani, Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia), UE Santa Coloma (Andorra), Egnatia (Albania), Celtic (Scotland), Sparta Prague (Czech Republic), Zenit St. Petersburg (Russia), Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine) and Petrocub Hincesti (Moldova).
These figures do not take into account the relative strengths of leagues, they are based purely on the performance of teams. They do, however, highlight how some countries’ domestic football is dominated by one or two clubs, hence stronger sides are able to generate impressive statistics.
Any team that wins 80% of its games deserves respect for their consistent performances, no matter who they are playing. You can, after all, only beat who is on your fixture list.
GAME OF THE PEOPLE 