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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