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Man City is rated by Opta's supercomputer as having the highest chance of winning the 2024-2025 Champions League.
This season, the number of teams participating in the Champions League has increased from 32 to 36. Instead of being divided into eight groups as in previous seasons, the 36 teams will play in one group, similar to the national championships. Each team will play eight matches against eight different opponents, including four home matches and four away matches.
The top eight teams will advance directly to the round of 16. The teams ranked 9th to 24th will have to play two play-offs for the remaining eight spots, while the bottom 12 teams are eliminated.
Opta rates Man City as the strongest candidate with 25.3% of winning the title this season. Guardiola's team has a 77.5% chance of reaching the top 8 in the first stage, 95.2% of reaching the round of 16, 73.8% of reaching the quarter-finals, 55% of reaching the semi-finals and 39.9% of reaching the final at the Allianz Arena, Munich on May 31, 2025.
According to the draw results, in the group stage, Man City will meet Inter Milan, Club Brugge, Feyenoord, Sparta Prague at home and visit PSG, Juventus, Sporting Lisbon, Slovan Bratislava.
Excluding penalty shootouts, City are unbeaten in their last 23 Champions League games, winning 16. If they avoid defeat in their opening two games of the season, they will equal the longest unbeaten run by a club in the competition's history, which is 25 games for city rivals Manchester United. Of all managers to have managed at least 50 Champions League games, Guardiola has the highest win percentage of 63.7% - winning 109 of 171.
Real are the second favourites, with a 93.6% chance of making it out of the group stage, a 69.8% chance of reaching the quarter-finals, a 48.9% chance of reaching the semi-finals and a 31.6% chance of reaching the final. Kylian Mbappe is given an 18.2% chance of helping Real win the title in Munich and lift the Champions League for the first time.
According to the draw, the Royal team will meet Dortmund, Milan, Salzburg, Stuttgart at Bernabeu, and visit Liverpool, Atalanta, Lille, Brest. Last season, Real won the championship when defeating Dortmund 2-0 in the final at Wembley Stadium, London.
With 10.9%, Inter Milan is the remaining club that Opta rates as having a greater than 10% chance of winning the Champions League. Following them are Arsenal (6.3%), Bayer Leverkusen (5.4%), Barca (5.2%), Liverpool (4.2%), Bayern Munich, PSG (4.1%).
There are nine teams that are predicted to have absolutely no chance of winning the championship: Celtic (Scotland), Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia), Salzburg, Sturm Graz (Austria), Brest (France), Red Star Belgrade (Serbia), Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine), Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia) and Young Boys (Switzerland).
Opta also compiled a table analyzing the difficulty of each club's fixtures in the group stage. Accordingly, PSG has the most difficult schedule with an average score of 92.4 points for their opponents. Luis Enrique's team will face Man City, Atletico Madrid, PSV, Girona at home, and Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Salzburg and Stuttgart away.
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