This season’s Champions League group stage has teams from all over Europe. And after the group stage draw, I noticed a huge geographical difference between some of the groups. Group A, for example, contains teams from Belgium, France, England, and Germany—all relatively close to each other. Group D, on the other hand, contains teams from Spain, Italy, Ukraine, and Moldova—across the continent from each other.

This made me wonder about a few questions. First, which teams have to travel the most for their matches this season? And related to that, which teams have to travel the least? Further, which groups have the most travel, and which have the least?

This article will answer those questions and show the data with maps and in tables.

The Data

Let me explain how I got my data. First, I needed the locations of all the clubs. I geocoded each club’s stadium in Google Maps and copied that to Excel. Next, I needed to find the distance between each club. For this step, I calculated the Great Circle Distance between clubs in each group, similar to this formula. The total distance for each club represents the distance to and from each of the other teams’ stadiums in their group.

Of course, this is not the exact distance the club will travel (since they have to drive to airports, planes don’t fly exactly the great circle route, and some groups clubs might drive), but it’s good enough for an estimate.

Teams Travel Distance

Here is a map of all the teams in the group stage this season. Follow this link to play around with the map yourself.

This map also shows the huge divide between the majority of clubs in Western/Northern Europe and those in Eastern Europe. Central Europe is barely represented (or not at all, depending on how you divide Europe).

So, looking at this map, which teams have to travel the furthest?

Most Travel: Beşiktaş (14,911 km)

Beşiktaş, in Group C, are the club who have to travel the furthest in this season’s group stage. They travel away to Sporting in Portugal, Ajax in the Netherlands, and Dortmund in Germany.

All this travel adds up to a whopping 14,911 km. That’s about 37% of the world’s circumference at the equator.

Second-Most Travel: Real Madrid (14,370 km)

Following close behind Beşiktaş is Real Madrid, in Group D, who have to travel 14,370 km. Real have long trips into Eastern Europe to face Sheriff Tiraspol and Shakhtar Donetsk, along with a trip to Italy to face Inter Milan.

Third-Most Travel: Dynamo Kyiv (14,275 km)

Group E’s Dynamo Kyiv have the third-longest travel distance. With two trips to the Iberian peninsula to face Benfica and Barcelona, along with a trip to Germany against Bayern Munich, Dynamo Kyiv will travel around 14,275 km.

Least Travel: Club Brugge (2,705 km)

Club Brugge, in Group A, will travel the least in this season’s group stage. Of course, being located close to the heart of Europe is beneficial, but the other teams in their group—while difficult—are very close.

The Belgian champions have trips to Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, and RB Leipzig—two countries bordering Belgium, and one sharing a water border.

Second-Least Travel: Paris Saint-Germain (3,286 km)

PSG, also from Group A, have the second-fewest kilometers this season. Again, having trips to neighboring countries has benefits. Even if the matches are difficult, the low amount of time and kilometers is beneficial.

Third-Least Travel: Manchester City (4,121 km)

It’s only fitting a Group A team completes our top-3 fewest miles this season.

Travel Distances By Group

Group A (14,956 km total)

Team	Nation	Total Distance (km)
Club Brugge	Belgium	2,705
Paris Saint-Germain	France	3,286
Manchester City	England	4,121
RB Leipzig	Germany	4,844

Altogether, Group A clubs will travel a combined 14,956 km—barely more than Beşiktaş have to travel as a single club. RB Leipzig have to travel the most in this group, covering 4,844 km.

This is the least amount of total travel for any of the groups this season, and it contains two of the strongest contenders to win the competition as well—PSG and Manchester City. Given that these two teams are 2 of the strongest and have the second- and third-fewest group stage kilometers respectively, it’s hard not to imagine both clubs will advance and be fresher deeper into the season than a club like Real Madrid—who have to cover more than 10,000 km more than either PSG or City.

Group B (28,892 km total)

Team	Nation	Total Distance (km)
Atlético Madrid	Spain	6,097
Porto	Portugal	6,724
AC Milan	Italy	7,845
Liverpool	England	8,226

Group B clubs combine for 28,892 km—almost twice as much as Group A.

Group B has the least amount of difference between the club traveling the most and the least. Liverpool travel the furthest, while Atlético travel the least, but just 2,129 km more than Liverpool. Group A’s difference is very close, with 2,138 km between Club Brugge’s travel and RB Leipzig’s.

Group C (45,694 km total)

Team	Nation	Total Distance (km)
Borussia Dortmund	Germany	8,242
Ajax	Netherlands	8,517
Sporting CP	Portugal	14,024
Beşiktaş	Turkey	14,911

Group C’s clubs combine for the third-most total travel in the groups, behind Groups D and E. This group is interesting because Dortmund and Ajax both have to travel almost half as much as Sporting and Beşiktaş. With Dortmund the only clear “favorite” in this group, it will be interesting to watch how the champions of Portugal, the Netherlands, and Turkey fare with drastically different travel distances.

Group D (45,779 km total)

Team	Nation	Total Distance (km)
Inter Milan	Italy	9,671
Sheriff Tiraspol	Moldova	9,854
Shakhtar Donetsk	Ukraine	11,884
Real Madrid	Spain	14,370

Group D combine for the most travel this season, with 45,779 km in total. The Earth’s circumference at the equator is 40,075 km, less than these teams’ travel. Inter and Sheriff benefit from being between Shakhtar and Real, but all of these clubs have to travel incredibly far for their away matches. Like mentioned above, it will be interesting to see how Real fares compared to other strong clubs like PSG or Manchester City, who have to travel almost 11,000 km less during their group stage.

Group E (44,722 km total)

Team	Nation	Total Distance (km)
Bayern Munich	Germany	8,851
Barcelona	Spain	8,937
Benfica	Portugal	12,658
Dynamo Kyiv	Ukraine	14,275

Group E looks remarkably similar to Group D, with all clubs in a relatively straight line from western to eastern Europe. Both favorites to advance, Barcelona and Bayern, travel a bit less than the other clubs, so this group should be interesting to watch as well. If either Dynamo Kyiv or Benfica progress, they will have done it while having a more brutal travel schedule than the others.

Group F (23,848 km total)

Team	Nation	Total Distance (km)
Young Boys	Switzerland	4,421
Atalanta	Italy	4,918
Villarreal	Spain	7,049
Manchester United	England	7,459

Now we could almost say we’re seeing a pattern—two pairs of clubs having similar travel as each other, but a large proportion more or less than the other pair. Even though this is the second-fewest total travel for an entire group, 3 teams—if not all 4—have a good chance at progressing. This is yet another group that should be fun to follow to see if travel distance and time has an impact on performances.

Group G (30,294 km total)

Team	Nation	Total Distance (km)
Lille	France	5,973
VfL Wolfsburg	Germany	6,451
Red Bull Salzburg	Austria	6,493
Sevilla	Spain	11,377

Sevilla are the odd ones out in Group G, being located much further away from all three other clubs. Their travel is about twice as much as the other clubs in their group, but have an argument for being the strongest team in the group. While not traveling nearly as far as many other clubs, being the most-traveled side in their group might play a role relative to the other teams.

Group H (34,301 km total)

Team	Nation	Total Distance (km)
Malmö FF	Sweden	6,666
Chelsea	England	7,991
Juventus	Italy	8,733
Zenit Saint Petersburg	Russia	10,912

Group H involves the two most northern clubs in this season’s group stage—Zenit and Malmö. All teams have to travel a fair distance, but Zenit have to travel a bit more than the others. Without huge differences in travel distances between the teams, this group might not see as much of an effect as some others.

Final Data Points

Group	Total Travel km	Team with Least Travel	Team with Most Travel
A	14,956	Club Brugge	RB Leipzig
B	28,892	Atlético Madrid	Liverpool
C	45,694	Borussia Dortmund	Beşiktaş
D	45,779	Inter Milan	Real Madrid
E	44,722	Bayern Munich	Dynamo Kyiv
F	23,848	Young Boys	Manchester United
G	30,294	Lille	Sevilla
H	34,301	Malmö FF	Zenit Saint Petersburg

This final graph shows that, thankfully, there’s no relationship between a club’s UEFA coefficient (the higher, the better) and their total travel distance. Once again we see Real Madrid with much more travel than their main rivals for the trophy.

Final Thoughts

Overall, this season’s group stage has plenty of interesting geographical elements, but one of the biggest points—in my mind—is that PSG and Manchester City have the 2nd- and 3rd-least travel of any club. There are many similarities between the clubs, including the ownership, the finances, the quality of the players, and that both have set a goal of winning the Champions League yet haven’t (even with loads of spending). It’s hard to see past that.

However, there’s also lots of inequality in the groups’ travel distance in general. Group A clubs barely travel, while groups D, C, and E each travel around 45,000 km. It’s impossible to avoid that some groups or clubs will travel a lot more or less than others, however this season the discrepancy is pronounced. With that said, I haven’t looked at previous seasons to see what the spread of travel distance looked like in the past as well.

Regardless, travel does take a toll on a club, and a club like Real Madrid—perennial favorites for the trophy—having to travel much more than rivals like PSG or City might have an effect later on in the tournament.

In the future it might be interesting to look at optimizing groups based on travel distance. Of course, the standard restrictions would still need to be followed—Russian/Ukrainian teams not in the same group, no clubs from the same country in a group, and one club from each pot in a group—but It is something to look into. But that’s a project for another day, a day when ESRI lowers their ArcGIS Pro license cost…

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