Sportradar analysed more than 98,000 goals scored in Europe’s Top 5 leagues over the last 20 years to determine which competition is the most exciting for the fans to watch – and it’s not the Premier League.
Using the number of goals scored per game as a measure of excitement, Sportradar’s cutting edge technology processed data from more than 36,000 matches played in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain between the 2005/06 and 2024/25 seasons. For more than 20 years, Sportradar has worked with the biggest names in world soccer, and more than 100 soccer organizations worldwide, including FIFA, UEFA, AFC and CONMEBOL, gaining access to unrivalled data and distributing the industry’s largest portfolio of soccer content.
While the English Premier League delivered the single highest-scoring season of the past 20 years with an average of 3.28 goals per game in 2023/24, Sportradar’s AI-driven analysis identified Germany’s Bundesliga as the competition that consistently delivers excitement for the fans.
This season Bundesliga fans have enjoyed an average of 3.14 goals per game, offering more excitement than Ligue 1 (2.96), the Premier League (2.93), La Liga (2.62) and Serie A (2.56).
More than 18,000 goals have been scored in the Bundesliga since the start of the 2005/06 season, despite the 18-team league having played between 1,000 and 1,500 fewer matches than the other big-five leagues of Europe in that time.
As a result, fans of the German league have been entertained by an average of 2.96 goals per game over the period. That far exceeds the average number of goals per game in the Premier League (2.74), Serie A (2.68), La Liga (2.66) and Ligue 1 (2.53) for the same period.
The extensive analysis of 20 football seasons or 100 individual campaigns raises questions about the quality of Europe’s top 5 football leagues including ‘which league is emerging as the most exciting?’ and in ‘which league fewer goals are being scored’.
Other notable highlights include:
- Ligue 1 is asserting itself as one of Europe’s most exciting competitions for the fans evidenced in the average number of goals scored per game two decades ago (2.13) compared to 2024/25 (2.96).
- There are fewer goals being scored in La Liga. In 2005/06 there was an average of 2.46 goals per game, then on a par with the Premier League. But the ratio grew fast over the next 10 years, peaking in 2016/17 with 2.94 goals per game, coinciding with players like Lionel Messi, Luiz Suarez and Cristiano Ronaldo being at the top of their game. Since then, there’s been a drop off in Spain, to an average of 2.62 goals per game in 2024/25
