“We’re a team made to play in Europe. PSG is for Europe, not for France.”
Two years ago Leonardo, then director of football at Paris Saint-Germain, made these comments arguing that PSG was better suited to play in the Champions League than in Ligue 1. However, since Leondaro made that claim PSG have been knocked out of the competition at the quarterfinal stage in back-to-back seasons.
This year the French champions will come up against an incredibly talented Chelsea squad in the round of 16 as they try and make a run at European glory. The question is do PSG finally have the team to back up Leonardo’s boast that they were made for this competition?
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Over the past five years the Champions League has had five very different winners in Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Barcelona and Inter Milan. They’ve all played different styles of football on the way to the final and as a result some of their underlying numbers vary as well.
Barcelona won in 2011 with one of the greatest football teams ever assembled, averaging an incredible 19 shots per game while conceding only 5.8 shots. On the flip side Chelsea won the Champions League the following year conceding an average of 18.5 shots per game, showing that sometimes the winner gets a few lucky bounces along the way.
So how does PSG stack up when compared to these last five winners?
One of the best indicators of a team’s dominance and predictor of future success is their Total Shots Ratio (TSR), which is the ratio of shots taken by a team to the total number of shots taken by the team and their opponents. Any TSR number greater than 0.5 means the team is outshooting their opponents on a regular basis.
PSG’s TSR in this season’s Champions League group stage was 0.58. The past five winners of the Champions League have had a group stage average TSR of 0.61, so slightly better than PSG, but not a whole lot different.
What is impressive about PSG’s group stage performance is their defensive numbers. They only conceded 9.3 shots per game, and this was in a group with Barcelona and Ajax. Of the past five winners only Barcelona in 2011 conceded fewer shots in the group stage—and that was against Champions League minnows FC Copenhagen, Rubin Kazan and Panathinaikos.
PSG’s TSR of 0.58 is also superior to Real Madrid’s group stage TSR last season of 0.54—so despite finishing second in their group there isn’t really much to worry about from PSG’s performance thus far.
What is a worry for PSG is their league form compared to their opponents. The bookies have made Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Chelsea the four favourites to win the Champions League. In the Bundesliga, Bayern Munich’s TSR is 0.73; in La Liga Barcelona’s is 0.69 and Real Madrid’s is 0.60; in the Premier League Chelsea’s is 0.61. PSG meanwhile have only managed a TSR of 0.56 in Ligue 1. Most people would argue that Ligue 1 is weaker than the Premier League, La Liga and the Bundesliga, yet PSG haven’t been able to dominate domestic games to nearly the extent Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Chelsea have in their respective leagues.
Although league TSR is a very good indicator of how good a team is at this stage—especially since every team has played a significant amount of games by this point in the season—maybe there is something to Leonardo’s comments about PSG being a team made for Europe.
There is a solid argument that can be made that the playing styles of Ligue 1 and the Champions League are significantly different. Last season for example there was an average of 100 more short passes per game in the Champions League than in Ligue 1.
So if PSG are going to win the Champions League what do they need to do?
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The most important thing is to generate more offence. PSG’s group stage TSR may be in line with the past five winners, but they have fewer total shots than any of those teams. PSG’s 12.7 shots and 4.5 shots on target per game probably won’t be good enough to bring the Champions League trophy home.
A major factor behind these lacklustre numbers for PSG has been Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s relatively quiet season. Last season Zlatan averaged 5.3 shots per 90 minutes; this season that number is down to 3.9 shots. It is no surprise then that his goal scoring numbers have gone down accordingly to 0.7 goals per 90 minutes from 0.9 goals last season.
These are still very good numbers for the average player, but compared to the incredibly high expectations Ibrahimovic sets for himself they are slightly disappointing.
His teammates haven’t really picked up the slack either. In fact Edinson Cavani’s shooting numbers are almost identical to his output last season at 3.6 shots per 90 minutes. As a result PSG’s total shots in league play has dropped from 15.61 per game to 12.17.
After finishing second in one of the most difficult groups of the opening round PSG now start the knockout round up against one of the tournament favourites in Chelsea.
PSG’s defensive numbers look like those of a team capable of winning the Champions League, but their offensive output drags behind the past five winners. If they want to be seen as a real competitor Ibrahimovic in particular will have to bring his production levels back to what they were last season.
Despite PSG’s struggling attack it is important to remember that Chelsea won the Champions League with a TSR of 0.44 in 2012 reminding us that strange things can happen in knockout football.
Sam Gregory is soccer analytics writer based in Montreal. Follow him on Twitter
