Champions League Predictions for Season 2023-24: Opta Predictions

Early in the season, the Opta supercomputer ran 10,000 simulations of the 2023-24 Champions League season and found that holders Manchester City had a probability of winning the competition of 38.9%. when the draw was first made, they were the heavy favorites to defend the title.

Now, with the action returning on Tuesday, with Manchester City traveling to Denmark to face FC Copenhagen and European heavyweights Real Madrid taking on RB Leipzig, we thought it would be a good time to find out how the supercomputer evaluates each team's chances.

So, in the latest batch of 10,000 simulations for the rest of the season, this is how often each team advanced to each stage of the game, and how often they won.

Of the remaining 16 teams, only four have won in more than one in ten simulations. Manchester City remain the favorites to win the Champions League again after winning the treble last season with a winning percentage of 32.1%. at the time of writing, they even have a greater than 50% chance of reaching the final.

Pep Guardiola's side broke the mental barriers last season to win Europe's biggest tournament and are the team to beat for the 2023-24 season.

Real Madrid are second favorites to win the Champions League, with the 14-time champions expected to make it to 15 in the supercomputer's 15.4% simulation. Real Madrid reached the final at 28.1% in the simulation and they are the favorites to beat Leipzig, whose chances of reaching the quarterfinals are close to 50%.

Last season's beaten finalists Inter Milan are considered the third most likely team to win the Champions League (11.6%), while their chances of reaching the final are less than a quarter of the supercomputer's simulation. The Serie A leaders have taken the second half of the season in their stride, going unbeaten in 90 minutes in their last 25 official matches.

They have won seven in a row ahead of their Round of 16 clash with Atletico Madrid and are big favorites to beat Diego Simeone's side. History tells us that Atletico should never be completely written off, but with only a 6.1% chance of reaching the final and a 2.4% chance of winning the whole tournament, it would be a bigger surprise than ever if Atletico went deep in the tournament.

Harry Kane's chances of ending his wait for a trophy took a huge blow on Saturday when Bayern Munich were knocked out by Bundesliga leaders Leverkusen. While he won't give up on winning domestic trophies this season, the Champions League will now become even more important. According to the Opta supercomputer, they are the fourth favorites to win the trophy (10.11 TP3T), while they are the second most likely team to make it through to the Round of 16 match, with 79.31 TP3T to beat Lazio - the tournament's cold favorite according to our simulations.

Paris Saint-Germain are the sixth most likely team to win the Champions League, winning the simulation at 6.4%. The runaway Ligue 1 leaders are surely certain to win their domestic league again and seem to have become a better collective after losing star players Neymar and Lionel Messi. The Champions League is the trophy they want most and it has always overtaken them in the last few years, but with Kylian Mbappe in tow, anything is possible. They face Real Sociedad this week with a 64.5% chance of sending them packing.

Barcelona (3.41 TP3T) and Borussia Dortmund (3.01 TP3T) are second on our predictions list, but neither team has had great seasons domestically and will have to improve dramatically if they want to beat the best teams and win Europe's elite tournaments.

Seven teams are considered to have a 1.5% or lower chance of winning the tournament. Of Porto (2 winners) and PSV Eindhoven (1 winner), all seven have some European pedigree, but RB Leipzig, Real Sociedad, Napoli, Lazio and Copenhagen will all be first-time winners. Copenhagen's chances of beating Manchester City are so slim and their chances of winning the whole thing so low that they're rounded to one decimal place to 0%.