Champions League Predictions 2025-26: The Opta Supercomputer Projections

Who will win the UEFA Champions League title in 2025-26? We look at all the key questions with our Champions League predictions for the upcoming season via our trusty Opta supercomputer.

Editor’s Note: This piece was written ahead of the 2025-26 Champions League. For live, updating Champions League predictions, visit this page.

The UEFA Champions League returns on 16 September, with football fans treated to three consecutive nights of UCL action across Matchday 1.

This season will be the 71st edition of the European Cup/UEFA Champions League, with 24 different teams having lifted the trophy to date.

Paris Saint-Germain head into the 2025-26 campaign as reigning champions, collecting their first ever Champions League title with a 5-0 thrashing of Internazionale to secure the biggest margin of victory in a UCL/European Cup final.

A competition overhaul ahead of last season saw the tournament increase from 32 to 36 teams and undergo a significant format change.

The eight four-team groups were replaced by a single league stage in which all clubs played eight matches – an increase from six – to place in one massive 36-club table. This format remains in 2025-26.

Finishing in the top eight ensures immediate qualification for the last 16, while the teams between ninth and 24th contest the Champions League play-off round for the right to join the leading sides in the knockout stage.

Of course, with the new format of the UCL, there is no more UEFA Europa League safety net – the bottom 12 from the 36 and the eight teams who lose in the play-off round will all be immediately eliminated from continental football for this season.

Last season, the format change seemed to increase the entertainment factor, too, as an average of 3.27 goals per game were scored in the 2024-25 edition; that was the most in a single European Cup/UEFA Champions League campaign since 1975-76 (3.31).

England will have six teams in the 2025-26 competition (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur), the most from one nation in a single edition.

Record champions Real Madrid are one of five La Liga sides in the league phase, alongside Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, Athletic Club and Villarreal, while Serie A and the Bundesliga have four clubs each this time around.

There are also three competition debutants in this season’s UEFA Champions League, with Pafos, Bodø/Glimt and Kairat Almaty all reaching the league phase via the qualifying rounds.

But who will win the whole thing? The Opta supercomputer has simulated the 2025-26 competition 10,000 times and confirmed its pre-tournament percentages. So, without further ado, let’s run through its UEFA Champions League predictions.

UEFA Champions League 2025-26 Predictions

Liverpool (20.4%) are favourites to win this season’s Champions League, according to the Opta supercomputer.

The reigning Premier League champions were knocked out in the round of 16 by eventual winners PSG last season.

The likeliest threat to Arne Slot’s side are Premier League rivals Arsenal (16.0%), while reigning champions PSG are third favourites to retain their title (12.1%).

Man City, who won the competition in 2022-23, are given an 8.4% chance, as are Barcelona, while Club World Cup champions Chelsea (7.0%), Real Madrid (5.8%) and Bayern Munich (4.3%) form the chasing pack.

Champions League Favourites in 2025-26

Despite being knocked out in the last 16 last season, Liverpool (20.4%) are the Opta supercomputer’s favourites to win the 2025-26 UEFA Champions League.

Liverpool finished top of the league phase in the 2024-25 edition, winning the most games and most points of any side (P8 W7 D0 L1 – 21 points). They won all four of their league phase matches at Anfield by an aggregate score of 10-1, including a win over then reigning champions Real Madrid (2-0). The only game they failed to win was their final outing of the league phase when a much-changed team lost 3-2 at PSV.

Slot’s side are once again seen as near certainties to fill one of the top few spots in the overall table.

They finished first out of 36 in 23.9% of our supercomputer’s league phase simulations, in the top four 58.9% of the time, and they were automatic qualifiers for the knockout stage by finishing in the top eight at an enormous rate of 79.5%. Should they finish first again, they will hope for a kinder pairing in the round of 16 than last season when they faced eventual winners Paris Saint-Germain.

Arsenal (16.0%) reached the semi-finals of the Champions League last season, before also being eliminated by PSG (3-1 on aggregate). That was their joint-second best performance in a single European Cup/UCL campaign, along with semi-final appearances in 2005-06 (when they made it to the final) and 2008-09.

The Gunners are the team with the most European Cup/UEFA Champions League games played without ever lifting the trophy (211), but that run could come to an end in 2025-26 based on the Opta supercomputer’s confidence.

Mikel Arteta’s side have one of the strongest defences in European football, which could stand them in good stead this time around. They have conceded just 18 goals in 24 UCL matches under Arteta. Among teams with 20+ games under a manager, only four sides in the competition have a better goals conceded per-game average (0.75): Fabio Capello’s Milan (0.38), Louis van Gaal’s Ajax (0.63), Frank Rijkaard’s Barcelona (0.68) and Ernesto Valverde’s Barcelona (0.71).

PSG (12.1%) won their first ever European Cup/Champions League in 2024-25 and will be looking to become the first French side to do so in consecutive campaigns. Indeed, only one side have lifted the trophy in consecutive seasons since the 1992-93 rebrand: Real Madrid in 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18.

It may come as a surprise to some that PSG are only ranked third in the pre-tournament supercomputer projections, but they have been given a difficult set of league phase fixtures.

Based on the average Opta Power Rating of opponents in the Opta Power Rankings at the time of writing, only Bayern Munich and PSV have sets of fixtures as difficult in the 2025-26 league phase as the French champions (92.4).

This is very much like last season, however, when PSG overcame a difficult league phase – their 92.4 average opponent Opta Power Rating was the highest – to progress to the knockout play-offs following a 15th-place finish in the table.

Other Champions League Contenders

Manchester City endured a season of struggle in 2024-25, finishing without a major trophy for the first time since Pep Guardiola’s first season at the club in 2016-17.

City were largely awful in the Champions League last campaign. They only just made it through the league phase and into the play-offs with a 22nd-place finish in the table, before losing 6-3 on aggregate to Real Madrid.

City are being given an 8.4% chance of going all the way in 2025-26, which is well below their projection of 25.3% this time last year, when they were the Opta supercomputer’s favourites.

Their projected chance is the same as Barcelona’s, with the La Liga side the competition favourites across much of last season’s knockouts before falling short in the semi-finals versus Inter Milan.

Barça were the top scorers in the Champions League last season, netting 43 goals in their 14 matches (an average of 3.1). Only Barça themselves in 1999-00 have scored more goals in a single edition (45) in the competition (since 1992-93).

They also have one of the best coaches in the history of the competition in their dugout.

Hansi Flick has the highest win percentage of any manager to take charge of more than one game in the UEFA Champions League (78%) and he also has the highest goals-per-game average (3.13). His teams have scored a combined 100 goals across 32 matches in the competition to date (Bayern Munich and Barcelona).

Their arch-rivals Real Madrid are given a 5.8% chance of adding another Champions League title to their honours list in 2025-26.

Madrid are the most successful team in European Cup/UEFA Champions League history, lifting the trophy on 15 occasions, more than twice as many as the team with the next most (Milan, 7), and three times as many as any other Spanish side (Barcelona, 5).

They were eliminated at the quarter-final stage of the UCL last season (5-1 on aggregate vs Arsenal), which was just the third time in the last 15 editions that they haven’t made it to at least the semi-finals.

Just above Real Madrid in the projections are Chelsea (7.0%), who surprised many by going all the way at the FIFA Club World Cup this summer, thrashing PSG 3-0 in the final on 13 July.

Head coach Enzo Maresca has won both international club competitions he’s managed in, leading Chelsea to the 2024-25 UEFA Conference League before their Club World Cup success, and he will look to add a third as the Blues return to the Champions League after a two-year absence.

Bayern Munich (4.4%) are one of the all-time greats across European Cup/Champions League history. The Germans have won 59.5% of their matches in the history of the competition (239/402); among teams with 50+ such games played, only Real Madrid (59.9%) have a better win ratio.

Their chances of success this time could be hindered by an unkind league phase draw, however. The Bundesliga club’s eight opponents in the league phase are deemed the joint toughest based on their average Opta Power Rating at the time of writing.

Best of the Rest

Despite reaching the final in two of the last three seasons, Inter are ranked outside the top eight favourites for the Champions League title with the Opta supercomputer.

It’s quite possible the supercomputer is seeing the exit of Simone Inzaghi, the head coach to take them to both of those finals, as detrimental to potential success in 2025-26. Former player Cristian Chivu will lead them this time around, becoming the second Romanian to manage them in the competition after Mircea Lucescu (3 games in 1998-99).

Their 3% chance of glory this season is the same as Newcastle United, who are back in the UCL after a one-season break.

The Magpies will aim to improve on their last showing in 2023-24 when they exited in the group stage, and they’ll be hoping that new attacking talent Anthony Elanga, Yoane Wissa and Nick Woltemade can replace the goals of Alexander Isak after the Swede completed a move to Liverpool on transfer deadline day.

Three clubs are being given between 1-2% chance of winning the Champions League this season, with one of those being 2024-25 UEFA Europa League winners Tottenham Hotspur (1.1%).

Ange Postecoglou lost his job at Spurs in the summer despite winning a European trophy, with replacement Thomas Frank taking charge of a team in the Champions League for the first time ever.

Napoli head into the competition as reigning Serie A champions, but the supercomputer saw them win the UCL in 2025-26 just 1.4% of the time.

They will be the fifth different team Antonio Conte has managed in the Champions Legue (also Juventus, Chelsea, Inter and Tottenham), with Carlo Ancelotti (8) and Claudio Ranieri (6) the only Italians to take charge of as many clubs in the competition (since 1992-93).

Benfica (1.7%) are the other club in this category, but they have never gone past the quarter-finals in the Champions League era, last doing so in the 1989-90 European Cup, when they lost 1-0 in the final to Milan.

Champions League Outsiders

Borussia Dortmund won the UEFA Champions League in 1997 but are being given just a 0.9% chance of replicating that success in 2025-26. They reached the final of this edition in 2.2% of the 10,000 pre-season simulations, something they managed to do as recently as 2024.

Bayer Leverkusen were knocked out at the round-of-16 stage by German rivals Bayern Munich in the previous edition, not advancing further than that since they reached the final in 2001-02. They are given a 0.7% chance of success this time around, which is just below Sporting CP (0.8) and Club Brugge (0.9%).

Juventus have reached nine European Cup/Champions League finals across their history but last won the competition in 1996. They ended that wait in 0.6% of supercomputer simulations this time around, the same as Atlético Madrid, who have lost in all three of their final appearances (1974, 2014, 2016).

Atalanta (0.6%), Athletic Club (0.5%), Villarreal (0.4%), PSV (0.3%), Monaco (0.3%) and Union Saint-Gilloise (0.3%) are all huge outside bets for the UCL title in 2025-26, while only three teams failed to win the Champions League at least once across the 10,000 Opta supercomputer sims: Kairat, Pafos and Qarabağ.

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