The Fans Blog4

Home is good, but away is best! When talking about La Liga this phrase becomes a lot more meaningful than you might think.



Hello and welcome to another round of Stigsby’s Statistics!

This time I have decided to focus on the away strength and the outcome of the season. With Barcelona’s current away form, breaking the record from 1927-1928, and the impressive win against Sevilla away it becomes even more relevant.

First thing we should do is look at history, what teams have won how many titles and how well have they performed away. It turns out that the Real Madrid has been the most successful, not that surprising to most of us, but it should be mentioned.


What is more interesting here is that they actually have quite a high amount of average points in away matches. As we look at the top 5 most winning teams in the Spanish league a pattern seems to appear, the titles descend as the average away points descend! The only thing talking against it here is the position of Athletic Bilbao and Valencia, but that could easily be explained by the fewer matches (seasons and thereby title potentials) played by Valencia.

It is now the more pessimistic reader comes in to play, having a high grade of average away points could also be explained by a high grade of average points overall? I mean, if a team are good they will of course also get a lot of points away. Couldn’t it just be a coincidence that the most successful title winners also have the highest amount of away points?

We’ve now reached the point where I will dismiss the doubt of even the most pessimistic reader! In the last 7 season the title has gone to the strongest away team in 6 of the seasons, only ONCE to another team. But come on, it might as well have been because they were dominant on home field; I still haven’t given you a completely bulletproof fact yet? Well here it comes, in those 7 seasons where 6 were won by the strongest away team, only ONCE has the winner of the season been the strongest at home field.


As you can see above there is a strong correlation between the strongest away and the final title winner, I’ve even been so bold to add the current home and away form of this season. If the statistics holds this season we could look forward to a league win for Barcelona. Barcelona is currently the strongest away team with 19 points in 7 away matches, closely followed by Villarreal with 15 points and Valencia with 12 points for 6 away matches.

Bet you guys enjoy the impressive Sevilla away win just a tiny bit more now ;)


Stigsby