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Lite läsning inför finalen

Meet Glück and Fehler - the stars of one-off finals

When Bayern and Dortmund invade the pitch at Wembley for the Champions League final on May 25, the most important players on the pitch might not be Bastian Schweinsteiger, Philip Lahm, Marco Reus or Mats Hummels. Instead, they are just as likely to be Glück (luck) and Fehler (error). But you'll search the starting lineups, the programme notes, and the jersey backs of the sides in vain for these names. And that is because the skill of players is no more important than luck and circumstance. The numbers tell us that in a one-off contest between teams of similar quality, Glück and Fehler could be the men of the match. In The Numbers Game we review the research of football scientists to show that almost half of all goals involve elements of fortune and blunder, and that coincidence - luck, chance, randomness - is one of the essences of the game.

Because of this, it seems to us that the bookmakers' 65-70 per cent odds of Bayern taking home the trophy ignore the role of chance and error. In last year's final on Bayern's home turf at the Allianz Arena, Bayern recorded thirty-five shots to nine, and had twenty corners to Chelsea's one. Chelsea scored from theirs, obviously. Bayern should certainly be the favourites this year, too, but at these odds, the smart money should be on Dortmund, Glück and Fehler. We know that Bayern destroyed Barcelona on aggregate 7-0, but they did no better than a pair of 1-1 draws with the Black Yellows during the Bundesliga season and a 1-0 victory during the cup quarterfinals. There's no good reason to think the final is more than a figurative coin toss.

The contest often goes, not to the strong, but to the less weak.

The eyes of all the fans at Wembley and those watching on television will naturally be drawn to the very best players on the pitch: Müller and Schweinsteiger; Lewandowski and Reus. Based on our research in The Numbers Game though, we recommend that you pay more attention to the weakest players; they are the ones who are more likely to make a critical turnover or commit an unnecessary foul, to fail to mark their man, or to leave an attacking channel unfilled. They are the ones with an invisible "Fehler" on their backs, and they are more influential in determining wins and losses than the superstars are.

Using the latest individual player rankings from Castrol EDGE, the weakest links will be Mandzukic and Javi Martínez for the Bavarians and Bender and Schmelzer for Dortmund. Don't be surprised if one of these four ends up playing the anti-hero at Wembley.