The UEFA Champions League quarter finals kick off this week, with the first matches taking place tonight.
But who’s going to win the most coveted trophy in club football? Well, that’s a question we’ll leave for the sporting buffs. Our interest though lies in a nifty visualisation published by the Google Trends team.
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“The map shows normalised search interest in each of the eight teams qualified to the Champions League quarter finals in every country,” the company writes.
Collating the swathe of searches on Google, the team has made it easy to see which Champions League team is currently the most searched-for across the world. Essentially, it’s Google’s version of the Champions League quarter finals.
So, who’s winning where?
Real Madrid takes the cup from Barcelona
There are three Spanish teams left in the competition — Real Madrid, Atletico and Barcelona — but it’s the former currently trending on search in its home country. In fact, Real Madrid owns much of Africa, Asia, Oceania and North America’s footballing search traffic.
Barcelona is the majority favourite in South America and Eastern Europe, but falls a distant second to its bitter rival globally.
Real Madrid is South Africa’s most searched-for UEFA Champions League team according to Google Trends
In the battle of the remaining German teams in the competition, Borussia Dortmund is winning in both Germany and Japan. Bayern Munich is currently a hot search in Austria, Switzerland and Poland.
Leicester City, the last remaining British team in the competition, is a hot search topic in both Thailand and Great Britain.
Italy’s only remaining team, Juventus, is trending in… well, only Italy.
And as for Monaco, it joins Atletico Madrid as a team that isn’t enjoying a winning search status in any country at the time of writing.
Africa’s favourites
Zooming in on Southern Africa’s search habits, an interesting pattern emerges.
South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Angola and Mozambique seemingly boast more Real Madrid fans than Barcelona fans on Google. These two teams represent the lands’ top two most searched teams respectively. Atletico Madrid and Bayern Munich share the third place spoils in varying countries.
For Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia and Malawi however, Barcelona leads Real Madrid in terms of search popularity. Interestingly though, Malawi’s third place search finisher is Leicester City, not Atletico or Bayern.
If you’re a sucker for big data, global search traffic trends or simply a footballing fan at heart, visit the Champions League quarter finals according to Google here, or have a look at the full map below.
