Juventus vs Barcelona: The winner can only be one

The 14/15 season in Champion's League is coming to an end. On Saturday, 5 June two great and historic teams will meet in Berlin, trying to win the title. Both had an incredible year, having won both the championship and the national cup in their countries. However, only one will win the treble.

In the 8 games played between the two teams, Juventus is leading with 4 wins, Barcelona has 2 and other 2 games ended equal. In their fixtures for Champions League there is an equilibrium as each team has 1 win with 2 games ending equal, all for the Quarter Finals phase.

If history shows Juventus, if the game would be played in monetary terms, Barcelona would be the absoloute winner. It has a squad valued at approximately €600 million, where on the other hand Juventus has a market value of €320 million.

In a quick comparison between the two teams we could see that in theory Barcelona has the advantage, but football is a game of 11 players against 11 and everything is possible. However, numbers have their own importance. Let's have a quick look on them.

Team	Barcelona	Juventus
Market value	€ 591,5 million	€ 320 million
Transfer spendings (2014-2015)	€ 157 million	€ 44 million
Transfer revenues (2014-2015)	€ 80 million	€ 30 million
Highest market value	Messi (€ 120 million)	Pogba (€ 50 million)
Foreign players on squad	50%	44%
Champion's League trophies (Champions Clubs' Cup)	3 (1)	1 (1)
Last Champion's League trophy	2011 (against Manchester United)	2003 (against Milan)
2014 -2015 Champion's League results (W-D-L)	10-0-2	7-3-2

Apart from the interesting stats that we saw above, this match has some interesting stories to tell. Luis Suarez will play again against Giorgio Chiellini after the 2014 World Cup game between Uruguay and Italy, where the Italian defender was bitten by Suarez. After this game, the Uruguayan striker was banned for 9 matches for  Los Charrúas and 4 months from any football-related activity.

We hope that nothing similar will happen on Saturday. Especially in the last game for Xavi Hernandez with Barcelona as he will join Al-Sadd in Qatar. He joined the first team on 1998 and since then he won every possible tittle. Will he win another one? We will know on Saturday night. Before that, let's watch a video that FC Barcelona prepared for Xavi. 

What do you think that will be the outcome on Saturday? Please comment or vote above.

The value of the last 16 teams in Champion's League

We are used, like it or not, to measure almost everything in monetary terms. Football couldn't be an exception with millions of Euros spent for star players every season. However, it is only a factor among others that contribute to the football ecosystem. Teams and players prove their capabilities in the court. In this article we will have a look on the economics of the Uefa Champions League best 16 teams for this season.

The group stage is over for the 2013/14 season with no huge surprises. Manchester City managed to qualify to the next round after last year's catastrophe (not qualified even in the Europa League with only 3 points collected). The biggest surprise for this season was Juventus, not qualifying to the last 16, losing their last game against Galatasaray in a 2 days battle due to bad weather conditions in Turkey last week.

As for the 16 qualified teams, they have an accumulated market value of €5,2 billion. Real Madrid is on the top of the list with more than €580 mil. in market value with Barcelona being in the second position with a million euros difference. The gap between Real and Olympiacos (the Greek champion and last in the market value index) is more than €500 mil. In the table below you can have the full details:

 Team                              Value                    Country

Real Madrid CF	583.500.000 €	Spain
FC Barcelona	582.300.000 €	Spain
FC Bayern München	487.200.000 €	Germany
Manchester City FC	472.750.000 €	England
Chelsea FC	458.750.000 €	England
Manchester United FC	405.000.000 €	England
Paris Saint-Germain FC	361.250.000 €	France
Arsenal FC	355.500.000 €	England
Borussia Dortmund	293.800.000 €	Germany
Club Atlético de Madrid	255.000.000 €	Spain
AC Milan	219.500.000 €	Italy
FC Zenit	205.000.000 €	Russia
FC Schalke 04	184.300.000 €	Germany
Galatasaray AŞ	157.350.000 €	Turkey
Bayer 04 Leverkusen	137.100.000 €	Germany
Olympiacos FC	72.150.000 €	Greece

Participating in Champions League is very important for the clubs' economics. In order to understand this let's have a look the economic impact of last season. During the 2012/13 season, the revenues of the 32 teams of the Group stage exceeded the amount of €900 mil. Juventus earned the most (€65 mil.) due to big market pool revenues (€45 mil.). Bayern, last season's champions, earned €55 mil, €10 mil. less than last year's Italian Champion. But what are the sources of these revenues? Uefa divides them into:

• Group stage fee (fixed amount for all the teams participating in the group stage)
• Performance bonus (according to their performance within the group)
• Market Pool (value of the television market in each country)
• Participation in knock-out phases (fixed amounts in every stage)

Participating in Champions League is very important for all European teams, both for economic reasons as well as for prestige. It provides a good source for revenues but also for global recognition as it is transmitted around the globe. 

However, on the other side of revenues is the cost parameter. A lot of teams, in Europe mainly, are spending massively. For this purpose Uefa has found Financial Fair Play, a measure to prevent professional football clubs spending more than they earn. More details for this initiative can be found in the official Uefa website here. It is early to see whether it will have an impact on football economics. 

We will be here to watch it together.

The Pric€ of Football

The new Champions League begins and will end in May in Lisbon with 32 teams competing for the title, in a competition offering prestige and million of Euros to the participants. Bayern Munich will try to maintain the title with Josep Guardiola looking for his 3rd trophy as a coach. In the same time Real Madrid, Barcelona and Chelsea want to return to the top. All of the above contenders have new coaches and very attractive teams. Let's not forget that Chelsea is also last Europa Cup's title holder.

We don't know who will be the winner in the end of the season, but we know the teams' ranking in terms of Market Value. The Market Value is the sum of economic values of the players each team has. The total Market Value of the 32 teams in Uefa Champions League for 2013/2014 season exceeds €7 billion, increased by %7,27 compared to last year. First in the list is Barcelona, with an estimated Market Value of €587 million, far above the Market Value of Viktoria Plzeň, which takes the last place of  the list with €20 million. You can see in the following tables the teams in the top 5 positions as well as in the bottom 5. 

                                           Top 5

Team		Market value	ø-Market value	Country
FC Barcelona		587.300.000 €	23.492.000 €	Spain
Real Madrid CF		571.500.000 €	24.847.826 €	Spain
FC Bayern München		483.650.000 €	18.601.923 €	Germany
Chelsea FC		475.750.000 €	17.620.370 €	England
Manchester City FC		469.750.000 €	19.572.917 €	England

                                        

                                         Bottom 5

Team		Market value	ø-Market value	Country
FC Basel 1893		49.900.000 €	1.848.148 €	Switzerland
FC Steaua Bucureşti		42.650.000 €	1.470.690 €	Romania
FC København		24.550.000 €	1.022.917 €	Denmark
FK Austria Wien		21.650.000 €	866.000 €	Austria
FC Viktoria Plzeň		20.000.000 €	869.565 €	Czech Rep.

You can see from the tables above a huge difference between the teams. For example, the 3 teams in the bottom of this ranking have values less than the average value of Real Madrid. The gap is very big. However, money don't play football; they help the teams buy players but within the 90 minutes of a game there are 11 players against 11 and everything can happen.

What do you believe?

Please share your thoughts with us! 

*All values are based on data collected on 4/9/2013