Second Tier knockout stage teams 2013-2019
by spade (2019-12-13 10:00:54)
Edited on 2019-12-13 11:31:21

In reply to: In the end, no one outside the big 5 leagues advanced right?  posted by DakotaDomer


I was cheering for several of these teams, so I did some research. And DakotaDomer, you're wrong only in that not only has there been at least one team, but there has always been TWO teams to advance. So yes, this is pretty rare, as in the past 7 years at least 2 teams outside the big 5 leagues have made it to the knockout rounds. Although this comes with serious caveats about who usually advances. Here are the past years starting from 2014 (knockout rounds happen in the spring so 2014 refers to 2013-2014 season).

2013: 4 Porto, Celtic, Shaktar, Galatasaray
2014: 3 Galatasaray, Zenit, Olympiacos
2015: 3 Porto, Basel, Shaktar
2016: 5 Zenit, Gent, Benfica, PSV, Dynamo
2017: 2 Benfica, Porto
2018: 4 Beşiktaş, Basel, Shaktar, Porto
2019: 2 Ajax, Porto
2020: 0 Suprising

You can see that in several instances they are the same teams, with a Portuguese team finding it's way past 7 times in 7 seasons, but also a Ukrainian powerhouse advances half the time. in fact, of the 23 times a non-big 5 league advanced, 16 are repeat teams, so the teams that do make it through are usually the same certain teams. In the past 7 years, that amounts to 6 semi-perennial teams, Porto, Basel, Shaktar, Galatasaray, Benfica and Zenit who have advanced at least twice.

Also, of these prior-to-advance teams, 7 of them (out of the 13 non-Big 5 group stage places) were in the group stage this year; Porto, Olympiacos, Shaktar, Genk, Benfica, Ajax and Galatasaray. However it just so happened, none of them went through. So the minnows' chances were certainly there, especially Zenit, Benfica, Ajax and Shaktar who all missed advancing by 1 point. It clearly seems like an aberration this year that not one of the 7 semi-perennial knockout round teams moved on.