Ryan O’Hanlon
Multiple Authors
These are the groups which have gained the past 10 UEFA Champions League titles: Real Madrid, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain.
Those groups additionally comprise six of the eight sides on what UEFA is asking the “Silver Path,” or the high half, of the 2026 Champions League bracket. These groups have mixed to win 31 Champions League titles, and so they’ve completed second one other 15 instances. At most, solely one in all them will attain the remaining this season.
As for the different facet, which we’re formally calling the “Blue Path,” I suppose? Their final title got here in 2015, and the eight groups on that facet have mixed for 5 European Cups and 9 extra second-place finishes. Apart from Barcelona, nobody else on that facet of the bracket has a single Champions League trophy.
We obtained a first-time winner final yr, and the approach the bracket fell this yr has significantly opened up the risk for it to occur once more. Though their odds are nonetheless approach decrease than 50%, Arsenal are sizable betting favorites to win the complete factor.
But will they? Like we do yearly, we’ll look again in any respect of the past champions for whom we have now superior knowledge, and determine which of the 16 remaining groups seems the most like a winner.
All knowledge, except in any other case famous, comes from Opta and Stats Perform.
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Predictive measurement No. 1: Scoring objectives
Rather than leaning solely on objectives, we’ll undertake a hybrid of goalscoring and likelihood creation that I’ve referred to in the past as “adjusted goals.” This, merely, is a mix of 70% anticipated objectives (xG) and 30% precise objectives — a greater measure of efficiency than objectives alone.
The flooring right here, as it’s in most locations, is about by the Chelsea facet that gained the Champions League regardless of ending in sixth place in the Premier League in 2012. Over the complete season, Roberto Di Matteo’s facet averaged 1.61 adjusted objectives per sport — a mark that is simply ever-so-slightly higher than what the different Champions League-winning Chelsea facet put up 9 years later.
Which group would not make the minimize this time? We must say goodbye to 3 walkers of the blue path and one from the silver, as Atlético Madrid (1.58), Atalanta (1.52), Newcastle (1.52), and Tottenham (1.13) fall under the threshold. We additionally should take away Sporting Lisbon, Galatasaray, and Bodo/Glimt, based upon the undeniable fact that no group outdoors of Europe’s Big Five high leagues has even reached the remaining in any of the past 15 seasons.
(If you need some extra analytical-like causes for why they do not seem like winners: Bodo had the fifth-worst xG differential in the league section amongst all groups, Galatasaray scored six non-penalty objectives in the league section, and Sporting had been outshot 118-87 in the league section.)
Teams eradicated: Atletico Madrid, Atalanta, Newcastle, Tottenham, Galatasaray, Bodo/Glimt, Sporting Lisbon
Teams remaining: Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Manchester City, Liverpool, PSG, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Bayer Leverkusen
Predictive measurement No. 2: Preventing objectives
Defense wins championships — or no less than, it used to.
We’ve seen a handful of actually elite defensive groups win the Champions League over the past 15 seasons: Chelsea in 2021, Barcelona in 2011 and 2015, Liverpool in 2019, and Bayern Munich in 2013. They all posted adjusted goals-allowed numbers under 0.85. But most of the current champions have hovered nearer to proper round 1.0.
Is it an indication of a shifting tactical steadiness throughout Europe? Or is it utterly meaningless and random? We shall see.
The worst protection to win all of it was the worst assault to win all of it: Chelsea in 2012, with their 1.22 adjusted objectives allowed per sport. Of the remaining sides, the solely group with a worse protection this season is, effectively, Chelsea, at 1.29 adjusted objectives allowed per sport this season. Just a handful of the 16 groups left enable extra photographs than Chelsea’s 11 per sport, and solely Barcelona — the final remaining practitioners of the sell-out-at-all-costs excessive press — are permitting larger high quality photographs.
Both Liverpool (1.22) and Barcelona (1.21) snuck in simply below the threshold.
Teams eradicated: Chelsea
Teams remaining: Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Manchester City, Liverpool, PSG, Real Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen
Predictive measurement No. 3: Pressing
Some 10 years in the past, supervisor Roger Schmidt was proving with Bayer Leverkusen how efficient aggressive, vertical soccer could possibly be. It wasn’t simply that they pressed excessive; they did, however then they’d additionally attempt to get a shot off on aim as quickly as doable. There actually wasn’t any group like them, and I’m unsure there was any group like them since, both.
The present model of Leverkusen is actually nothing like them. As measured by passes allowed per defensive motion (PPDA), they’re the least aggressive urgent group left in the Champions League.
The most aggressive pressers to win the Champions League had been Luis Enrique’s Barcelona in 2015, who produced a freakish 6.98 PPDA. This is the identical group that hardly ever ever gave up any objectives and had some random dudes named Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez, and Neymar taking part in up high. They’re the finest soccer group I’ve ever seen.
The least aggressive pressers to win the European Cup, unsurprisingly, had been Chelsea in 2012. They produced a PPDA of 13.26, which implies that we should eradicate Leverkusen and their 13.44 PPDA from rivalry.
Teams eradicated: Bayer Leverkusen
Teams remaining: Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Manchester City, Liverpool, PSG, Real Madrid
Predictive measurement No. 4: Frequency of crossing the ball
Unlike the different numbers we have gone over, that is extra of a sweet-spot state of affairs. We’re in search of groups who fall between the highest- and lowest-frequency crossers of the ball.
Why? Crossing is an inefficient methodology of play on common, however you continue to want to have the ability to stretch the protection horizontally and create hazard from the flanks. If you by no means cross the ball, that is a foul factor. And in case you at all times cross the ball, that is additionally a foul factor. A wholesome strategy would not rely on crossing as its important attacking lever, but it surely additionally would not eradicate it altogether.
A Champions League-winning strategy has beforehand fallen someplace between 8.4% and 19.7% of final-third passes being crosses. The former quantity is PSG final season and the latter is, once more, Chelsea in 2012.
Among this season’s remaining individuals, solely Spurs fall outdoors the excessive finish of the threshold, however plenty of the present favorites fall under the threshold. Bayern Munich, Barcelona, and PSG — the present second-, third- and sixth-favorites to win the event — are crossing the ball lower than final season’s winners did. Barcelona are at 8.0%, whereas Bayern (7.7%) and PSG (7.4%) are even decrease.
The query for all three of those groups in the knockout rounds: Will they be capable of create high quality alternatives if they arrive up in opposition to a giant, bodily, organized protection?
Teams eradicated: Bayern Munich, Barcelona, PSG
Teams remaining: Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, Real Madrid
Predictive measurement No. 5: Pace of play
It’s just about unimaginable to be answerable for each sport you play in the Champions League. Not solely is the competitors stage so excessive and the kind of competitors so totally different from what you are used to in your home league, however once you play the identical group twice in a few weeks, tactical weaknesses usually tend to be exploited.
In different phrases, if you are going to win the Champions League, you will have to have the ability to survive — and even thrive — throughout lengthy stretches when the ball is bouncing backwards and forwards and each groups are working up and down the area.
But as soon as the pandemic hit, the sport modified in a single day and we’ve not gone again. In 2019, Liverpool’s matches averaged 99.1 possessions per group — then the highest of any winner in the dataset. That was till Bayern Munich, with 99.8 possessions, broke the report the following yr. The 5 champions since then, although, are actually the 5 winners who averaged the fewest possessions per sport.
But the quantity hasn’t saved dropping after Man City set the decrease certain of 78.5 possessions per group in 2023. So, for now, we’re preserving it there. And which means each Arsenal (77.2) and Real Madrid (78.2) get despatched packing.
Teams eradicated: Arsenal, Real Madrid
Teams remaining: Manchester City, Liverpool
Predictive measurement No. 6: Defensive form
There are every kind of how to play protection and win trophies.
You can press excessive and maintain the ball away out of your field. You can drop deep and make it unimaginable in your opponent to search out area in the attacking third. Or you may slot someplace in between: play a midblock that frustrates your opponent proper round midfield and mucks up each possession. We’ve seen groups suppress objectives at a very excessive stage by doing all of the above.
What we have not seen earlier than: a profitable protection that permits its opponents to get on the ball in the heart of the area.
In Europe this season, the common group permits its opponent, on common, to the touch the ball 17.52 meters from the heart of the area. Every single one in all the past 15 Champions League winners saved their opponents even farther away from the heart. When Manchester City gained their solely Champions League in 2023, their opponents obtained on the ball, on common, 17.58 meters from the heart of the area — and that is the lowest distance-from-the-center for any current winner.
That’s dangerous information for Liverpool, who’re permitting their opponents to the touch the ball 16.76 meters from the heart, which isn’t solely nearer to the heart than any past winner, but it surely’s nearer to the heart than all however six different groups in Europe’s Big Five leagues this season.
And so, that leaves us with Manchester City. That feels unusual, on condition that that is one in all the three or 4 worst City groups that Pep Guardiola has managed. But what’s attention-grabbing about City is how, effectively, uninteresting they’re. In the past, Guardiola’s groups would at all times exist on some type of extremes — for a way they managed possession or pressed or moved the ball ahead. Now, they only type of seem like all of the different good groups do, with out too many distinctive stylistic options.
That would not work as effectively once you’re making an attempt to maximise your factors haul over a 38-game home season, therefore Man City being behind Arsenal in the Premier League title race — however perhaps it is a greater match for 4 rounds of knockout soccer in opposition to all of the finest groups in the world.
Winner: Manchester City
