Opta projections rate Liverpool’s chances of winning Champions League compared to Arsenal and PSG | OneFootball

The Champions League begins in earnest this evening, with 36 clubs in the league phase to be whittled down to two when the final in Budapest rolls around next May.

As Premier League holders, Liverpool are among the favourites to be crowned European champions by the end of the season. They’re certainly expected to go much further than in 2024/25, when they were eliminated in the round of 16 by eventual trophy winners Paris Saint-Germain.

The Reds go into their first continental fixture of the campaign against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday night having yet to drop a point domestically, although they’ve had to rely on late winning goals in each of their four top-flight games.

How likely are Liverpool to win the 2025/26 Champions League?

Ahead of the Champions League commencing, Opta’s win prediction model (based on historcal and recent team performances and 10,000 simulations) has calculated where each team is likely to finish in the league phase, and who is the likeliest winner of the tournament overall (as per The Athletic).

Their data gives Liverpool a 20% chance of winning the competition, the highest of any of the 36 teams involved, with Arsenal next at 16% and defending champions PSG at 11%.

Arne Slot’s side are also deemed the likeliest to finish in the top eight and advance straight to the round of 16 (77% probability), with just a 1% chance of being eliminated from the tournament before the knockout stages.

The Reds are projected to finish the league phase (in which they’ll face both Madrid clubs) with 17 points from a possible 24, four fewer than they earned in last season’s Champions League but still the joint-highest projection alongside the Gunners.

(Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)

Liverpool can justifiably aim for Champions League glory this season

Whilst it’d obviously be beneficial to secure a place in the round of 16 as early as possible, Liverpool discovered last term that there’s no major advantage to topping the league phase. It was their misfortune that PSG finished 15th at that stage before gaining unstoppable momentum in the knockout rounds.

In reality, all the Reds need to do at this point in the competition is to finish in the top eight and avoid the potential bear pit of a knockout play-off round in February, the point at which Manchester City came a cropper against Real Madrid in 2024/25.

If Slot’s side can guarantee a top-eight finish with matches to spare (as they did last season), it’d give them the luxury of resting key players towards the tail end of the league phase, which could be vital given the likelihood of an intense fixture schedule in January once the FA Cup third round commences.

That Opta’s objective model gives Liverpool the highest chance of anyone to win the Champions League is a testament to how strong a squad we now have, and anything less than a quarter-final appearance would represent a bitter disappointment.

Luck always plays it part in the composition of knockout round pathways, but the Reds should feel confident against any other team in Europe. After all, it was they who came closer than anyone to toppling PSG last term – they certainly would’ve given them a far tougher contest in the final than Inter Milan did.