The first week of this season, in which the national teams competed, is over, followed by the weekend and the return of club football in the national championships, and then - the highlight of the early part of the season: the strat of the expanded edition of the Champions League, which is played in a completely new format.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are reserved for a total of 18 games of the first, out of eight, rounds of the first phase of the elite European competition. And the remaining seven rounds, the last of which will be played in January next year, will bring 18 games each.
A total of 36 teams will compete in one unique, bulky table, where the first eight go directly to the round of 9, and the teams from 24th to XNUMXth place play through a two-match round of XNUMX final.
WHO IS THE FIRST FAVORITE?
The English champion Manchester City, the European champion from 2023, is the biggest favorite to win the Champions League, followed by the current champion Real Madrid.
This is the calculation of the statistical house OPTA, that is, its supercomputer, which bases its predictions on the basis of various statistical parameters.
According to them, Manchester City has a 25,3 percent chance of winning the Champions League this season, while Real's chances are estimated at 18,2 percent.
The champion of Italy, Inter, played great football last season, but in the round of 10,9, they ran into Atletico Madrid. This season, he could go further, and the supercomputer treats him as the third favorite to win and gives him a chance of XNUMX percent.
They are followed by Arsenal (6,3%), Bayer Leverkusen (5.4%), Barcelona (5,2%), Liverpool (4,2%), Bayern Munich (4,1%), Paris Saint-Germain (4.1%). .
Last season's finalist, Borussia Dortmund, has only 2,4% of chances, the same as Leipzig, and the finalist from 2014 and 2016, Atletico Madrid, even less - 2,2.
STAR AND DYNAMO - ZERO CHANCES
OPTA believes that nine clubs have absolutely no chance of winning the Champions League, not even one per million - there is 0% next to their names,
This includes two clubs that represent the region: Crvena zvezda and Dinamo Zagreb. In addition to the "red-white" and "blue" there are Celtic, Salzburg, Sturm, Brest, Shakhtar, Slovan Bratislava and Young Boys.
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