I have always found “Champions’ Luck” to be one of the most loaded phrases in football. It usually shows up after the fact, after a deflection, a late goal, a marginal decision. It is how we explain outcomes that feel unfair in the moment. But when it keeps happening to the same teams, it stops feeling random.
Take Real Madrid in 2021/22. Comebacks, deflections, moments that looked improbable stacked on top of each other. To rivals, it was luck. To their fans, it was inevitability. That contrast is always there. One side sees chaos, the other sees a pattern. That is where I land on it. “Champions’ Luck” is not a single moment. It is a recurring theme. A sequence of small breaks, post-hits, VAR calls, loose balls, that consistently fall one way.
My view is simple. It is not mystical. It is what happens when elite preparation, psychological control, and constant pressure meet a game that is already decided by fine margins.
Football is a low-scoring sport. That is the starting point. There are not many goals, not many decisive moments, and that means each one carries more weight than in almost any other game. Because of that, randomness always has a role. A deflection can decide a match. A slight error in positioning can undo ninety minutes of control.
But what I think gets missed is how the best teams interact with that randomness.
When a team spends most of the game in the opposition’s half, constantly attacking, constantly forcing decisions, they are increasing the number of moments where something can go wrong for the opponent. A tired defender misjudges a clearance. A rebound falls awkwardly. A block loops instead of dropping.
Over time, that pressure adds up. It is not that the team is “lucky.” It is that they are creating more situations where luck can appear.
You see it in teams that consistently outperform their defensive metrics. They concede chances, but not clean ones. They force opponents into rushed shots, awkward angles, low-percentage decisions. On paper, it can look like overperformance. In reality, it is control of the type of chances allowed. The margins do not just exist. They are shaped.
There is also a mental layer to this that I do not think we talk about enough. When you play against a team that has a reputation for winning, for surviving, for always finding a way, it changes how you behave. You rush things. You second-guess decisions. You try to be perfect instead of being natural.
Think about facing a goalkeeper like Thibaut Courtois in a big game. If you believe he is unbeatable(because he often is, ask Liverpool), even slightly, you might shoot a fraction earlier, aim a little wider, overcompensate. When the chance is missed, it gets labelled as luck. But the miss was created by pressure, not chance.
The same applies to entire teams. Champions recover quickly from setbacks. A goal conceded does not shake them. A bad decision does not linger. They reset and continue. Other teams do not. They dwell on it. They feel the injustice. They carry it into the next phase of play.
Penalty shootouts are the clearest example. We call them lotteries, but they rarely feel random when you watch closely. One team walks up expecting to score. The other walks up hoping not to miss. That difference is everything. So when a team keeps “getting lucky,” I usually see something else. I see a team that has made their opponents uncomfortable, rushed, and uncertain.
The easiest way to test this idea is to look at teams that have been labelled “lucky.”
Start with Real Madrid in 2021/22. The narrative was built on comebacks and chaos. But underneath that was structure. They defended their box well, limited clear chances, and trusted that moments would come, it also helped that they had Courtois, of course. They did not dominate every(or any) game, but they controlled the phases that mattered.
Then look at Paris Saint-Germain in their 2024/25 Champions League win. For years, the story around them was bad luck, collapses, missed opportunities. When they finally won, and won convincingly, the narrative flipped. But the real shift was tactical. Under a more controlled system, they used possession as a defensive tool. Fewer transitions, fewer chaotic moments, more control.
And then there is SSC Napoli under Antonio Conte. Late winners, tight games, a sense that things kept falling their way in the 2024/25 title run. But again, look closer. Superior fitness, relentless structure, and players like Scott McTominay arriving late into the box when others were tiring. Those final minutes were not random. They were engineered. Different teams, same pattern. The “luck” sits on top of something more deliberate.
This is the part I find most convincing. What we often call luck is just the part of the game we do not see being prepared. Set-pieces are the obvious example. A scrappy goal from a corner looks random. In reality, it is usually the result of hours of repetition. Movements rehearsed, blocks practiced, runs timed.
The same applies to second balls. The unpredictable bounce, the loose clearance, the deflection. Good teams do not predict exactly where the ball will land. They position themselves to cover every likely outcome. That is not luck. That is preparation meeting uncertainty.
I always think about Alex Ferguson and the idea of “Fergie Time.” It was framed as something mythical, as if time itself bent in his favor. But the reality was simpler. His teams pushed harder, committed more bodies forward, increased the volume of attacks late in games. Eventually, something had to give. Again, more moments, more pressure, more chances for something to happen.
You might think that technology would have killed this idea. More accuracy, fewer mistakes, clearer decisions. But if anything, VAR has made the concept of “Champions’ Luck” more intense. Now, the margins are visible. A goal is offside by a fraction. A penalty is given for a slight contact. Everything is correct, technically. But emotionally, it still feels harsh, especially when it favors the same teams over time.
So the narrative adapts. It is no longer just about deflections or rebounds. It becomes about decisions, about millimeters, about whether the system itself is tilted. I do not think VAR has changed the underlying reality. It has just made the margins easier to argue about. The perception of luck has become sharper, even as the decisions have become more precise.
Where I land on all of this is simple. Luck exists. In a sport like football, it always will. The margins are too fine, the scoring too low, the variables too many. But it is not evenly distributed. The best teams create environments where those margins matter more often. They apply pressure, maintain structure, and control the emotional rhythm of games. Over time, that creates the conditions for “lucky” moments to appear.
So when I hear that a team is always lucky, I usually hear something else. I hear that they are consistently doing the things that make luck relevant. Because luck, on its own, does not repeat. The conditions that produce it however, do, and if a team keeps finding itself on the right side of those moments, it is probably not chance. It is design.
