I made a ranking about the ability of scoring or not conceding an equalizer. The data are all from the current season, and refers to the domestic leagues of England, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain. I took them from soccerstats.com The first table refers to the ability to score an equalizer after having conceded a goal that gave the lead to the opponent. I took into consideration only the teams who conceded a "leading goal" to the opponent a number of times equal at least to the 66% of the matches played. MP = matches played GGLO = number of goals that gave the lead to the opponents EGS = number of equalizer goals scored by the team ATE = ability to equalize (ratio between EGS and GGLO) For example, Inter Milan played 16 matches this season, conceding 14 times a goal that gave the lead to their opponents, and 9 times they were able to equalize it. Their ability to equalize is then 64,29% (9/14). The second table is about the ability to not conceding an equalizer after having taken the lead. I took into consideration only the teams who scored a "leading goal" a number of times equal at least to the 66% of the matches played. MP = matches played GGL = number of goals that gave the lead to the team EGC = number of equalizer goals conceded to the opponent OATE = opponent's ability to equalize (ratio between EGC and GGL) Real Madrid played 15 games, scored 15 "leading goals" and conceded only 2 equalizers to their opponents, for an OATE of 13.33% (2/15). When they take the lead of a match, they hardly lose it. Please note that a team could score or concede more than one "leading goal" and/or equalizers per game. Example: team A vs team B; team A scores the first goal of the match, going on 1-0; then team B equalizes to 1-1; then team A scores the 2-1, and team B scores the final 2-2. In this match, team A scored 2 goals that gave them the lead, and conceded 2 equalizers; viceversa for the team B, who scored 2 equalizers and conceded 2 goals that gave the lead to the opponent.
Why 66%? How many clubs were excluded because of how few times they trailed? I would think some clubs trailed in fewer than 66% of their games.
Yes, 66% is too high actually. I wanted to include only the teams who scored or conceded a leading goal a number of times equal at least to the two-thirds of the matches played. But it is better to reduce this limit, otherwise many significative outcomes are excluded. In the following tables, the threshold is reduced to 50%. The matches are the same taken into consideration above, as of the 31st of December. Ability to equalize: in this ranking the leader is now Bayer Leverkusen, who conceded 11 times a goal that gave the lead to their opponents, and 8 times they were able to equalize it. Opponent's ability to equalize: Guimaraes and Malaga didn't concede any equalizer to the opponent teams, after having taken the lead 8 and 9 times, respectively.
I think the ability to equalize goes hand in hand with which teams are great at keeping possession and quickly counter-attacking, since this would imply having both technical players and great goal scorers. That being said, I don't think you can accurately measure this because some of the best teams at equalizing rarely put themselves into situations where they have to, as compared to teams that frequently find themselves trailing their opponents.
For this reason I set the threshold, otherwise some stats would not be significative. For example, Bayern Munich are a great team in equalizing: they have a 100% ability to equalize this season, but they trailed only twice so I excluded them from the ranking. On the other hand, Bayer Leverkusen and Inter Milan are "experts" in letting the opponents going ahead of one goal, but most of the times they manage to recover. Regarding the opponent's ability to equalize (the second table), also Boavista have a 0% OATE, but they scored only 4 leading goals out of 14 games, so they are not in the ranking.
In this new football season (2015/2016), these are the data until now. Ability to equalize: Everton, Leicester, Rennes and Roma managed to equalize the 80% of the time they conceded a leading goal to the opponent team (4 times out of 5). West Bromwich, Nantes, AC Milan, Bologna, Academica Coimbra and Getafe never managed to equalize. Opponent's ability to equalize: 10 teams managed to never lose the advantage given to them by a leading goal. Verona was never successful in keeping the lead (5 times out of 5). You can find all the data at this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tIckvCDckSTqDhDrcLg51KkmXpqOigUjoTXr0N1rJUc/edit?usp=sharing There are 2 worksheets, one for the ability to equalize and the other one for the opponent's ability to equalize. P.S.: The data are not taken from soccerstats anymore, I calculate them by myself.
These are the final data for the 2015/2016 season. The best team in ATE (ability to equalize) ranking is Sassuolo (Italy), who managed to equalize the 60,87% of the times they conceded a leading goal to the opponent team (14 times out of 23). The second and third teams are West Ham United (England) and Porto (Portugal), respectively with a percentage of 60% (12 out of 20) and 58,82% (10 out of 17). On the contrary, Udinese (Italy), Bastia (France) and União Madeira (Portugal) are the worst teams in this ranking. Udinese have a percentage of only 13,64% (3 out of 22). Bayer Leverkusen (Germany) is the best team in the OATE (opponent's ability to equalize) ranking, with a percentage of 5,26% (1 out of 19) of times in which they lose the advantage given to them by a leading goal, while Vitória Setúbal (Portugal) conceded an equalizer goal on 66,67% of the times (12 out of 18). You can find the complete data here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tIckvCDckSTqDhDrcLg51KkmXpqOigUjoTXr0N1rJUc/edit?usp=sharing There are 2 worksheets, one for the ATE (the highest the better), and the other one for the OATE (the lower the better).
These are the final data for the 2016/2017 campaign. Nice (France) was the top team in ATE (ability to equalize), with a percentage of 78,95% (15 equalizing goals against 19 goals giving the lead to the opponent). The second team was Borussia Dortmund (Germany), with a percentage of 70% (14 vs. 20) and the third was Fiorentina (Italy) with 61,54% (16 vs. 26). On the contrary, Nancy was the worst team in this ranking: they managed to equalize only 3 goals out of 24 (12,50%). Tottenham (England) was the best team in OATE (opponent's ability to equalize), conceding only 2 equalizing goals out of 28 leading goals scored (7,14%); Atlético Madrid (Spain) was second with a percentage of 11,54% (3 out of 26) and Monaco (France) third at 11,76% (4 out of 34). Deportivo La Coruña (Spain) was the worst team, conceding an equalizing goal 60% of the times (12 out of 20).