La Liga is well ahead of the Premier League as the strongest in Europe in terms of Champions League consistency, with Barcelona the best-performing individual club since the rebranding of the competition in 1992.
The supremacy of Spanish teams over England’s best was demonstrated again on Wednesday night as only the brilliance of Joe Hart prevented Manchester City suffering a humiliating defeat to Barca at the Nou Camp, and their loss means there are no English representatives in the last eight of the Champions League for the second time in three seasons with Chelsea and Arsenal also out.
A study by PA Sport looked at each competition from 1992-93 up to and including the 2013-14 edition and awarded points to clubs on a sliding scale, from a minimum of one for losing at the quarter-final stage to a maximum of four for winning the trophy.
Under these criteria, Barca scored 30 points, edging out rivals Real Madrid (29) despite winning the competition three times over the period compared to Real’s four triumphs.
Bayern Munich were third overall on 28 points with Manchester United the top performing English club on 26. The next best English representatives in the study are Chelsea on 19 points.
The success of Barca and Real contributed heavily to La Liga’s tally of 79 points, 11 better than that managed overall by Premier League clubs in the same period.
That lead will grow by at least three points at the end of this season with Barca, Real and Atletico Madrid all in the last eight.
Meanwhile, Liverpool’s triumph in 2005 and final appearance two years later make them the third-best English club in the study period on 11 points, though of course going back to the European Cup era they have a further four titles to boast about.
Arsenal have accrued nine points and are the highest-placed team in the whole study not to have won the competition, with their runners-up finish in 2006 the best they have managed.
The success of Milan and Juventus in the 1990s and the early part of the last decade means Serie A has performed better in this study overall than the Bundesliga, but a look at the season-by-season points tallies shows Italian success drying up in recent years with German clubs seemingly on the rise.