Easiest fixture list by final League Phase position in the Champions League
Out of curiosity, I thought I'd add up the final positions of each team's 8 opponents in the League phase to get a very rough estimate of how tough each team's fixture list turned out to be. Not sure it's super relevant from an analysis standpoint but I thought it was interesting enough to share anyway.
A few things I noticed while pulling it all together:
- Villa didn't face a single team that finished above 12th in any of their 8 games
- Stuttgart went out despite having the 2nd easiest schedule, being the only team with a top-10 easiest fixture list to exit the competition. Four of their 8 games were against sides that finished 29th or below
- City's performance looks even worse here, having the 6th easiest fixture list and still only just making it through
- Leverkusen made it to the Last 16 despite the 5th hardest schedule, playing 3 of the top 5
- Real Madrid almost did the same with the 4th hardest schedule, with 4 of their games being against sides in the top 10
- Of the 10 teams with the hardest schedules, 7 ended up being eliminated