Bundesliga's unique take on the progression of Youth - Why it's not successful in Europe's biggest competition

Bayer Leverkusen’s performance in the current ongoing competition shows the value of having old heads alongside talented youngsters. While the performances of youngsters like Lars Bender (22 year old replacement for Arturo Vidal, 24 years, who was sold to Juventus) and Andre Schurrle have been commendable, arguably the vital ingredient in the Werkself’s success was the experience brought from Michael Ballack (himself with 100 European Cup appearances) who was award the man of the match award in Leverkusen’s important 2-1 win over Chelsea.

Eventhough his performances in the league haven’t been of the same standard, his impact in the Champions League can not be argued against. Same was the impact of Raul in Schalke’s astonishing run last year.

A graph relating the average age of the final starting line of the UEFA Champions League winners from the first edition in 1992/93 and the average age of the teams within the Bundesliga this season shows the large divide present between the two.

Scatter plot of Average Age of Champions League winners (Blue) and Bundesliga sides during the current season (Red)

As a comparison, lets see the same compariosn for Seria A, La Liga and Premier League sides.

Champions League winners (Blue), La Liga (Red), Seria A (Green), Premier League (Purple)

Its clear to see that while a divide exists between the Bundesliga and the Champions League line, all three of the other leagues criss-cross it thereby showing that, going by the trend of Champions League winners, the Bundesliga lags behind in terms of the age of their squads.

There are only two squads amongst the Champions League winners whose average age lies within the range of current Bundesliga squads. One, not surprisingly is the Ajax side from 1994 while the other is Real Madrid team which consisted of the likes of a young Casillas, Raul and Anelka while having only one player above the age of 30 (Redondo).

Out of a total of 19 Champions League winners, the appearance of only two sides within the age range as those in the Bundesliga shows the rarity of teams as young as the Bundesliga winning the Champions League. Many of the Ajax stars of 94′ went on to continued success in some of the biggest sides in Europe, from Van Der Sar (24), Seedorf (19) to Kluivert (19) and Davids (22) thereby showing that the batch of players from that side were truly an exceptional bunch, once in a generation group of players.