Which of the Big Five European Soccer Leagues Has the Lowest Draw Percentage?
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In soccer league matches, a draw is quite often a bad result for both teams, since a win awards three points and a draw just one point each. As soccer analytics advances, a natural hypothesis is that the draw rate drops over time, as teams realize that the reward of scoring a goal in a tied game late greatly outweighs the risk of conceding and suffering defeat. In this analysis, I’ll take a closer look at the draw rates in the Big 5 leagues over the past two decades and comment on what the trends suggest about the development of analytics in each league.
There is, of course, a baseline draw percentage that is unavoidable. For instance, a team trailing by one goal late will inevitably score the occasional stoppage time equalizer. Moreover, there are scenarios in which a team (or both teams) will aim for a draw. For example, a team that’s atop the table will take a draw in the last match of the season if it means they clinch the title. They’ll also often gladly take a draw against the team chasing them in the standings late in the season. Less often, but still possible, both teams will be happy with a draw in the last match of the season if it guarantees them Champions League berth and the league title is no longer in reach.
Now, let’s examine the draw percentage trends across Europe’s Big Five leagues.
Figure 1: Draw Percentages in Europe’s Big Five Leagues Over the Past 21 Seasons
From Figure 1 above, we can clearly see that draw percentages are trending downward in Europe as a whole, as analytics increasingly point to taking more risk at the end of tied games late. Across all five leagues, draw percentage has dropped by 0.087% per year on average. That’s a 1% lower draw rate every 11.5 years and a drop of 1.74% in draw rate over the 21 year period.
Now let’s break this down by league to glean additional insights.
Table 1: Draw Percentages in Europe’s Big Five Leagues, Grouped into Two Five-Year Periods (2004–2008 and 2021–2025)
From Table 1, we can see that the EPL has the lowest draw percentage over the past five seasons, at 22.79%, suggesting that the EPL has the most advanced analytics. Ligue 1 has had the largest decrease in draw percentage from the early 2000s to present-day.
The only league that has seemingly regressed is La Liga, with a higher draw percentage over the past five seasons than the La Liga draw percentage in the early 2000s.
