Scientific method for assessing "Real Madrid DNA": merely a catchy journalistic term or reality?

Abstract

<abstract> <p>The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the frequent references to "Real Madrid DNA", when a team comes from behind in the last minutes of a match, could be understood as merely a journalistic surrogate for truth or having simply degenerated into a catchy phrase without much meaning. We took, as a case study, clubs playing in the top division of the Spanish league between the 2010–2011 and 2021-2022 seasons, resulting in an unbalanced panel with 34 clubs that played at least one season in that category. As for the methodology, a variable was created to measure the percentage of times a club comes from behind in the last minutes of a match and explained using a model that included the economic power of the club, other match-specific variables, and fixed effects to assess whether a differentiating effect for Real Madrid (RM) was detected. Concerning empirical findings, it can be asserted that RM's undoubted ability to improve its results in the final stretch of matches comes mainly from money but also from something else hard to explain. Put differently, finding support to RM having something special, which we can refer to as its DNA. RM's fixed effect is not only positive and different from zero but also higher than any other team. Indeed, it differs from the remaining ones from a statistical point of view.</p> </abstract>