The Champions League with a new format and increased number of teams will officially start today, September 17. Before the matches took place, the statistics company Opta predicted the championship chances of the teams.
The brightest candidate to win the Champions League
Despite their painful exit last year, Man City are still the team with the best chance of winning the championship this year (25.3%), according to the prediction of supercomputer Opta.
It’s not hard to make an argument for Man City as favourites. Excluding penalties, they are unbeaten in their last 23 Champions League games, winning 16, and if they avoid defeat in their first two games of the 2024-25 season, they will equal the longest unbeaten run by a team in the competition’s history, equalling past rivals Man United’s 25-game unbeaten run.
Pep Guardiola is a testament to Man City's strength. Among coaches with 50 or more matches in this competition, he has the highest winning percentage (63.7%) with 109 wins in 171 matches.
Man City are predicted to have a 95% chance of reaching the round of 16 – the highest rate among the 36 teams. Also according to Opa, Haaland and his teammates have a 55% chance of reaching the semi-finals, 39.9% chance of reaching the final and 25.3% chance of winning the championship.
Defending champions Real Madrid are rated at 18.2% chance of defending their title, based on an analysis of 10,000 Opta data simulations. The addition of Mbappe increases Real's chances and adds to the challenge for their opponents. Mbappe has scored 48 goals in this competition before turning 25.
There is a 48.9% chance that Real Madrid will reach the semi-finals for the fifth consecutive season, while the odds for them to reach the final are also very high – 31.6%.
Inter (10.9%) is the only remaining team rated with a higher than 10% chance of winning the Champions League this season.
Simone Inzaghi's side were beaten by Atletico Madrid in the last 16, but it was a tense game that was decided on penalties. Inter comfortably won Serie A last season and are also in the 2022-23 Champions League final. They lost to Man City in an unlucky game.
Arsenal and Barcelona cannot be underestimated.
After the three teams above, the odds of the teams behind are quite balanced. According to Opta, Arsenal, Bayer Leverkusen, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Liverpool and PSG are also predicted to win the UEFA Champions League this season, with odds ranging from 4.1% to 6.3%.
Arsenal emerged as the fourth team with the potential to win the championship this year. Statistics show that Arsenal is the team that has played the most matches in the C1 Cup/Champions League but has not won the championship (197 matches).
However, the London team has also been playing quite consistently, with a regular pass through the group stage in the last 15 times participating. According to Opta, Arsenal has a 76.5% chance of reaching the round of 16, a 13.2% chance of reaching the final and a 6.3% chance of winning the championship.
Barcelona with the presence of Robert Lewandowski - who scored 94 goals in Champions League history - is rated with an 83.3% chance of passing the group stage and a 5.2% chance of winning the championship.
This year, Barca is led by Hansi Flick. With the team winning all 5 matches in La Liga, the Spanish team is expected to go deep in this year's Champions League.
On the other hand, Opta rates Celtic, Dinamo Zagreb, Salzburg, Sturm Graz, Brest, Young Boys, Slovan Bratislava… as having no chance of winning the championship. Their odds are 0%.
