Palmeiras just won their Copa Libertadores group with a paltry 9 points and 5 goals scored, 0 goal differential. Made me wonder, what is the worst record for a group-stage winner that you can recall (under this same commonly-used format where a group consists of 4 teams, double round-robin)? APOEL came close last season in the UEFA CL (9 points, 6 goals scored, 0 GD), although they use a different tie-breaking method. Technically Zenit had the best record in that group with 9 points and +2 GD. Then I found Juventus in the 1998-99 CL (8 points, 7 goals, +2 GD). They drew their first 5 matches, then won their last game to win their group (and they would have won the group even using the FIFA/Goal differential tie-breaking method). Anything worse than 8 points, +2 GD?
Can't recall anything worse than Juve 1998-99 in terms of points/ppg, though there may be Group Winners out there with Negative GD.
Found! While not a Group of a Tournament, Taiwan National League 2007 was played among 4 teams over just 6 games. Taipower FC won the league with a GD of -2, partly due to the large 0-5 loss to Taiwan U-23 team. Table: http://aragon.ws/soccerdb/league/latest.php?stageId=471 Games: http://aragon.ws/soccerdb/league/matchesAll.php?stageId=471
AS Monaco won a 2014-2015 UEFA Champions League group with only 4 goals scored. Only three of the other 31 clubs scored fewer than 4 goals and those three clubs all finished last. The other seven group winners each scored at least 14 goals.
CAN 2012 qualifiers - Group G P W D L GF GA Pts Niger* 6 3 0 3 6 8 9 S. Africa 6 2 3 1 4 2 9 S. Leone 6 2 3 1 5 4 9 Egypt 6 1 2 3 5 5 5 *Niger qualify 03-05/09/10: South Africa 2-0 Niger 03-05/09/10: Egypt 1-1 Sierra Leone 08-10/10/10: Niger 1-0 Egypt 08-10/10/10: Sierra Leone 0-0 South Africa 25-27/03/11: South Africa 1-0 Egypt 25-27/03/11: Niger 3-1 Sierra Leone 05/06/11: Egypt 0-0 South Africa 03-06/06/11: Sierra Leone 1-0 Niger 02-04/09/11: Niger 2-1 South Africa 02-04/09/11: Sierra Leone 2-1 Egypt 07-09/10/11: Egypt 3-0 Niger 07-09/10/11: South Africa 0-0 Sierra Leone
Group Standings as below: http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/season=2015/standings/round=2000548/group=2003070/index.html Scoring just 4 Goals in 6 Games for 3 Wins to top the Group, is this a World Record of some sorts?