Ranking the Champions League, Europa League, Conference League favorites

That was … underwhelming, huh? With the potential for a bunch of blockbuster matchups ahead of the Champions League draw, we got almost nothing of note. According to ESPN BET’s odds, Monday’s draw didn’t shift any team’s championship probability by even a full percentage point in either direction.

However, the path toward the final has at least started to take shape — across all levels of European competition. Is Manchester City a bigger favorite to win the Champions League than Liverpool is to win the Europa League than Aston Villa is to win the Conference League? Is Bayern Munich or Bayer Leverkusen more likely to lift a continental prize? Does David Moyes have a better chance of making the Champions League next year than Xavi does of winning it this year?

Based on the odds from ESPN BET, we’ve ranked the 20 most likely Lifters of European Hardware (LoEH): eight Champions League teams, and six apiece from the Leagues Europa and Conference. All ties have been broken by yours truly, and all stats come from Stats Perform, unless otherwise noted.

1. Manchester City: Champions League, +200

Consider this a big ol’ bucket of cold water for all the “City are as vulnerable as ever” takes out there. Despite playing against (theoretically) all of the best clubs in the world, Pep Guardiola’s team are bigger favorites to win their competition than Liverpool or Aston Villa, both four points ahead of City in the Premier League table, are to win theirs.

In fact, according to data from the site Sports Odds History, City have only had better odds to win the Champions League ahead of the Round of 16 once in the Guardiola era: last season, when they took down the treble. While all of the dropped points make City much less likely to win the Premier League all of a sudden, these odds show that the market isn’t too concerned with City’s quality of play from here on out.

2. Liverpool: Europa League, +225

Here is the expected-goal map of Liverpool’s 7-0 win against Manchester United at Anfield last season:

And here is the expected-goal map of Liverpool’s 0-0 draw against Manchester United at Anfield on Sunday:

That scoreless draw was sort of a microcosm of where Liverpool currently are: disjointed, unbalanced but frequently still dominant.

3. Aston Villa: Europa League, +275

On the one hand, two of England’s four Champions League teams finished last in their groups and were dumped out of Europe. Best league in the world, huh?

On the other hand, English teams are significant favorites to win all three European tournaments. That’s why, despite the Newcastle and Manchester United exits, the Premier League is still very likely to earn one of the extra Champions League places next season:

The battle for the *bonus* UCL ticket!

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England fumbles and loses 2 teams (ManU, Newcastle) ➡️ a FULL point drop in the expected end-of-season coefficient points!

This means this is now a real 3 horse race with 🇮🇹 Italy and 🇩🇪 Germany (who also lost 1 team). pic.twitter.com/POcirxVor9

— Nils Mackay (@NilsMackay) December 15, 2023

Best league in the world, huh? Probably!

4. Bayern Munich: Champions League, +425

This is a tricky one. Despite easily winning the group, Bayern weren’t particularly impressive in the Champions League. They produced the 10th-best non-penalty xG differential in the group stages — even in what ultimately amounted to one of the weakest groups in the competition. Plus, they’re not even first in the Bundesliga table.

And yet, they’re currently sporting a truly absurd plus-2.13 non-penalty xG differential (per game). That’s more than twice as good as any other team in Germany, and it’s a better mark than anything produced by any team in any Big Five League in any season since 2011.

Maybe it’s just as simple as this: Bayern Munich have always been one of the best teams in the world — and then they signed one of the best strikers on the planet (Harry Kane) and one of the best center backs (Kim Min-jae) in the same summer. Shockingly, they’ve become even better.

5. Bayer Leverkusen: Europa League, +500

This is one of the best teams in Europe. Like Liverpool, they should be in the Champions League right now — not the Europa League. Like Liverpool, they’re also probably not quite as good as the defending domestic champ that they’re currently ahead of in the league table.

Leverkusen’s non-penalty xG differential is fantastic, but it’s way below Bayern and even slightly below Stuttgart’s. Among all teams in the Bundesliga, Xabi Alonso’s side have overperformed their nonpenalty goal differential (when compared to their xG differential) by the biggest margin: about 14 goals. Expect some regression in the second half of the season.

6. Fiorentina: Europa Conference League, +525

What happens when you drop a league-average team from one of Europe’s biggest leagues into the third-tier continental competition? The answer is that the market will give them about a 16% chance of winning the thing.

Domestically, Fiorentina have a negative nonpenalty xG differential so far this season — and so, too, do fellow “Big Fivers” in the Europa Conference League, Real Betis and Eintracht Frankfurt. The big difference: Fiorentina have a ticket straight to the Round of 16, while the other two still have to win their qualifying-round matchups to even get there.

7. Arsenal: Champions League, +575

Don’t look now, but Arsenal have the best nonpenalty xG differential in the Premier League through 17 games:

When you’re that good more than halfway through December? You can absolutely win the Champions League.

8. Real Madrid: Champions League, +600

Real Madrid’s defense was already suspect before this weekend. Although they’ve conceded the fewest non-penalty goals in LaLiga (11), they’re only fourth in xG conceded (17.49). Both Kepa and Andriy Lunin — neither of whom would be confused with the injured Thibaut Courtois when it comes to being a world-class shot-stopper — have saved 2.5 goals more than expected, per Stats Perform’s model.

That seems unlikely to continue, and it might be paired with an even higher quality and quantity of opposition shots allowed. On Sunday, Madrid lost center-back David Alaba to a torn ACL, and they’ve already lost Courtois and center-back Éder Militão to torn ACLs, too. As of now, the center-back options are: Antonio Rüdiger and then either Aurélien Tchouaméni, who is a midfielder, or Nacho, who will be 34 come the first leg against RB Leipzig and who has only played about 500 minutes so far this season.

If Madrid somehow pull this one off, it might be their most impressive Champions League run yet.

9. AC Milan: Europa League, +900

[whispers] Christian Pulisic is scoring and assisting an unsustainable number of goals at AC Milan.

The American has converted 2.4 xG into five goals, and his teammates have converted 1.8 xG from his passes into four goals. Among all players to feature in at least half of the available minutes in Serie A this season, Pulisic ranks sixth in nonpenalty goals+assists per 90 minutes (0.84). Flip that to expected goals and assists? He’s sitting in 31st, a 0.39. [stops whispering]

10. Eintracht Frankfurt: Europa Conference League, +900

They did beat Bayern Munich, 5-1, just a week ago:

They’ve since followed that up with a pair of losses by a 5-0 combined scoreline to Aberdeen and Bayer Leverkusen. They lost three games in the Europa Conference League group stages and they have a negative nonpenalty xG differential in the Bundesliga. Even with a not-so-easy qualifying round tie against Belgium’s Union Saint Gilloise, they’re still third-favorites to win the Europa Conference League.

11. Lille: Europa Conference League, +1200

And so we enter the Glut of Twelve Hundred; there are eight teams stuck at +1200 odds across the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League.

This is not betting advice, but I’m a little confused as to why Lille don’t have better odds — especially when compared to Frankfurt, who have to play an extra round of games. They’ve hung on to Jonathan David, they won their Europa Conference League group, and they’re a top four or five team in France. We also have close to a half-decade of this team being good enough to challenge for Champions League places.

Why can’t they win it all?

12. Brighton: Europa League, +1200

It’s been something of a down year for the Seagulls; it turns out not even the savviest recruitment in the world can overcome the departure of nearly $200 million of midfield transfers and injuries to a number of key young players. They’re ninth in the Premier League, and they have the ninth-best nonpenalty xG differential in the league.

That said, they’re better than West Ham, while all of the other not-yet-mentioned-non-Champions League teams at +1200 are stuck in the qualifying rounds right now. PSG and Barcelona could both win the Champions League, but they’ll be underdogs against all of the teams listed ahead of them here. Outside of Liverpool and Leverkusen, I’m not sure I’d favor anyone else in the Europa League over Brighton at this point.

13. Paris Saint-Germain: Champions League, +1200

Despite finishing second in their group, Paris Saint-Germain drew the easiest first-place team in Real Sociedad for the Round of 16. That’s after playing Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, at the same stage, in the past two seasons. And despite playing in the toughest group, they had a better nonpenalty xG differential than every team other than Arsenal, Real Madrid and Manchester City through the group stages.

At the same time, the issue with PSG is typically that they look — easily — like the most statistically dominant team in Europe. We just don’t really know how to weigh that dominance compared to the other top teams because their wage bill is four times the size of any other team in France. Except, this season they’re just barely the best team in France, by the underlying numbers, with a plus-0.8 nonpenalty xG differential slightly edging out Marseille’s second-best mark of plus-0.76.

Maybe they’ve built a team that’s not as able to dominate Ligue 1 but that’s better equipped to manage matches against the best team in the world. Or maybe, without Lionel Messi, Neymar and Marco Verratti, they’re just not as good as they used to be.

14. Barcelona: Champions League, +1200

After Saturday’s draw with Valencia, Xavi said, “We have to be one of the least-effective teams in Europe, even though we’re one of the teams that create the most chances.” In other words, we stink at turning shots into goals.

Is he right? Here’s a chart:

The farther above the line, the more goals you’re scoring relative to your xG — and vice versa. As you’ll see, Barca are well below the line. Only Manchester United and Koln are underperforming their nonpenalty xG by a bigger degree than Xavi’s team: 29 goals on 36.27 xG. That’s unlikely to continue, but that also doesn’t make their Round of 16 matchup with Napoli any easier.

15. West Ham: Europa League, +1200

This isn’t a particularly good West Ham side. They’ve scored one more nonpenalty goal than they’ve conceded this season, and they’re sporting a slightly negative xG differential through 17 games. They’re basically the definition of an average Premier League team.

And well, here’s something of a level-setter for you: An average Premier League team is one of the five favorites to win the Europa League.

16. Real Betis: Europa Conference League, +1200

I’m really interested in Betis’ qualifying-round tie against Dinamo Zagreb … for science. Betis, like many of the other teams mentioned, are an average LaLiga team: slightly positive goal differential, slightly negative xG differential. Although they’re currently in third, Dinamo Zagreb are the dominant team in Croatia, winning 15 of the past 16 league titles. How does Croatia’s super-club compare to a mid-tier team in Spain?

17. Ajax: Europa Conference League, +1200

Through 16 matches, PSV Eindhoven have a plus-50 goal differential in the Eredivisie. Ajax, meanwhile, are at plus-5 — and with a plus-6.8 xG differential, it’s not backed up by much better underlying numbers. This is the worst Ajax team we’ve seen in a while.

18. Roma: Europa League, +1500

There are 14 Jose Mourinho-managed domestic seasons in the Stats Perform database. Overall, his teams have outperformed their non-penalty xG differential by 102 goals — and they’ve done it in 11 of the individual seasons.

The three years they haven’t? The disaster campaign with Chelsea in 2015-16 when he was let go midyear, just a season after winning the league, and then the past two seasons with AS Roma, where his teams have produced a plus-20 nonpenalty goal differential from a plus-41.8 xG differential.

Yes, you have permission to find this to be very funny.

19. Inter Milan: Champions League, +1800

All things considered, Inter’s draw turned out pretty well. Last season’s Champions League runners-up are clearly the best team in Italy this season, and they’re probably one of the best teams in Europe, too.