Predicting the 2026 UEFA Champions League winner based on past winners
These are the groups which have received 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 prime 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 considered one of them will attain the finish this season.
As for the different aspect, which we’re formally calling the “Blue Path,” I suppose? Their final title got here in 2015, and the eight groups on that aspect have mixed for 5 European Cups and 9 extra second-place finishes. Apart from Barcelonanobody else on that aspect of the bracket has a single Champions League trophy.
We bought a first-time winner final yr, and the manner the bracket fell this yr has severely opened up the chance for it to occur once more. Although their odds are nonetheless manner 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 now have superior knowledge, and determine which of the 16 remaining groups appears to be like the most like a winner.
All knowledge, until in any other case famous, comes from Opta and Stats Perform.
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Predictive measurement No. 1: Scoring targets
Rather than leaning solely on targets, we’ll undertake a hybrid of goalscoring and probability creation that I’ve referred to in the past as “adjusted goals.” This, merely, is a mix of 70% anticipated targets (xG) and 30% precise targets — a greater measure of efficiency than targets alone.
The flooring right here, as it’s in most locations, is about by the Chelsea aspect that received the Champions League regardless of ending in sixth place in the Premier League in 2012. Over the total season, Roberto Di Matteo’s aspect averaged 1.61 adjusted targets per sport — a mark that is simply ever-so-slightly higher than what the different Champions League-winning Chelsea aspect put up 9 years later.
Which crew does not make the reduce this time? We need to 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 beneath the threshold. We additionally should take away Sporting Lisbon, Galatasaray, and Bodo/Glimt, based upon the incontrovertible fact that no crew outdoors of Europe’s Big Five prime leagues has even reached the ultimate in any of the past 15 seasons.
(If you need some extra analytical-like causes for why they do not appear like winners: Bodo had the fifth-worst xG differential in the league section amongst all groups, Galatasaray scored six non-penalty targets in the league section, and Sporting have 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 targets
Defense wins championships — or at the least, 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 beneath 0.85. But most of the latest 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 targets allowed per sport. Of the remaining sides, the solely crew with a worse protection this season is, effectively, Chelsea, at 1.29 adjusted targets allowed per sport this season. Just a handful of the 16 groups left permit 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 greater high quality photographs.
Both Liverpool (1.22) and Barcelona (1.21) snuck in simply beneath 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 attainable. There actually wasn’t any crew like them, and I’m undecided there was any crew like them since, both.
The present model of Leverkusen is definitely nothing like them. As measured by passes allowed per defensive motion (PPDA), they’re the least aggressive urgent crew left in the Champions League.
The most aggressive pressers to win the Champions League have been Luis Enrique’s Barcelona in 2015, who produced a freakish 6.98 PPDA. This is the identical crew that hardly ever ever gave up any targets and had some random dudes named Lionel Messi, Luis Suarezand Neymar enjoying up prime. They’re the greatest soccer crew I’ve ever seen.
The least aggressive pressers to win the European Cup, unsurprisingly, have been Chelsea in 2012. They produced a PPDA of 13.26, which implies that we should eradicate Leverkusen and their 13.44 PPDA from competition.
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 scenario. We’re in search of groups who fall between the highest- and lowest-frequency crossers of the ball.
Why? Crossing is an inefficient technique of enjoying 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 nasty factor. And in the event you all the time cross the ball, that is additionally a nasty factor. A wholesome method does not rely on crossing as its fundamental attacking lever, nevertheless it additionally does not eradicate it altogether.
A Champions League-winning method has beforehand failed someplace between 8.4% and 19.7% of final-third passes being crossed. The former quantity is PSG final season and the latter is, once more, Chelsea in 2012.
Among this season’s remaining members, solely Spurs fall outdoors the excessive finish of the threshold, however quite a few the present favorites fall beneath the threshold. Bayern Munich, Barcelona, and PSG — the present second-, third- and sixth-favorites to win the match — 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 have the ability to create high quality alternatives if they arrive up towards an enormous, 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 not possible to be accountable for each sport you play in the Champions League. Not solely is the competitors stage so excessive and the kind of competitors so completely different from what you are used to in your home league, however while you play the identical crew 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 discipline.
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 crew — 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, at the moment are the 5 winners who averaged the fewest possessions per sport.
But the quantity hasn’t stored dropping after Man City set the decrease certain of 78.5 possessions per crew in 2023. So, for now, we’re conserving 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 the way 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 not possible 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 targets 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 discipline.
In Europe this season, the common crew permits its opponent, on common, to the touch the ball 17.52 meters from the heart of the discipline. Every single considered one of the past 15 Champions League winners stored their opponents even farther away from the heart. When Manchester City received their solely Champions League in 2023, their opponents bought on the ball, on common, 17.58 meters from the heart of the discipline — and that is the lowest distance-from-the-center for any latest 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, nevertheless it’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 considered one of the three or 4 worst City groups that Pep Guardiola has managed. But what’s fascinating about City is how, effectively, uninteresting they’re. In the past, Guardiola’s groups would all the time exist on some form of extremes — for a way they managed possession or pressed or moved the ball ahead. Now, they only form of appear like all of the different good groups do, with out too many distinctive stylistic options.
That does not work as effectively while 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 towards all of the greatest groups in the world.
Winner: Manchester City
