2025-2026 La Liga Season Predictions: Opta Supercomputer Predictions

While Barcelona is looking to build on last season's success, it does so The start of a new era for Real Madrid Madrid under the guidance of Xabi Alonso.

Reaching the semi-finals of the FIFA Club World Cup this summer, where they were ultimately beaten by Paris Saint-Germain, was the beginning of the end for Alonso, but the former Leverkusen boss is keen to emphasize that it is the end of a previous chapter, not the beginning of something new.

Atletico Madrid completed the traditional "big three" last season and have been busy rebuilding Diego Simeone's squad this summer. The club, which finished fourth and secured a UEFA spot in the Champions League for the first time since the 2014-15 season, has made a statement of intent by grabbing star winger Nico Williams, while Villarreal are back to dining at Europe's top table.

There's little to distinguish the final eighth from the twelfth place Season - in fact, there are only six points between top-performing Rayo Vallecano (eighth) and 12th-placed Valencia, while a large number of teams, including Sevilla, can consider themselves lucky not to have been dragged into the bottom three.

Among the promoted clubs, Real Oviedo are making a return to the top flight after more than two decades of absence. They start their campaign in Villarreal on Friday before hosting Real Madrid in their second outing in the big time.

Here, calling on Opta to run 10,000 data-driven simulations on the supercomputer, we predict how the 2025-26 La Liga season will shake out.

Who's gonna win La Liga?

Barcelona are just four points ahead of second-placed Real Madrid Last season Madrid, but they were somehow the best team Spain throughout the campaign.

The Blues have plundered 102 goals in La Liga - they are the only team in Europe's top five leagues to have scored a century of league goals in the 2024-25 season - and they also lead the league in expected goals scored (92.2) and shots on goal (678). (678). Only Bayern Munich (2,706) recorded more passes into the final third than Barcelona (2,626).

The success of Barcelona is due to their sensational offensive display. Rafinha has been involved in 56 goals (34 goals, 22 goals assists) in all competitions, while only Kylian Mbappe (43 years old) has scored more goals among the top players in Europe in all competitions than Robert Lewandowski (42 times) in five more leagues.

Yamal leads La Liga in assists (13 - four players ahead of any other team), while the 18-year-old also attempted (309) and finished (161) the most dribbles of any player in the Spanish top flight. Putting into perspective the last data, Sevilla's Dodi Luke Baggio recorded the second most successful dribble in Los Angeles Liga, with 84 points.

Barcelona missed Athletic star Nico Williams, but brought in Marcus Rashford on loan from Manchester United to strengthen their attack, which also has Ferran Torres. The Spanish international was associated with the transfer of Al-Nassr, but he proved his worth in a short period of time with 10 La Liga goals in 1,100 minutes of action in the competition last season.

So, our model sees Barcelona as the favorites - they retain the title at 46.5% in the supercomputer simulation. There's a 26.4% chance of Flicks' team finishing second, and only a 13.6% chance of them missing out on the top three - which hasn't happened since 2003.

Meanwhile, Real Madrid have a 32.1% chance to regain the crown. They are entering a new era under the leadership of Xabi Alonso and have moved to strengthen their squad ahead of the Club World Cup.

No defender in the history of the Premier League has made more assists for them than the name of Trent Alexander-Arnold (64), who is aiming to replicate the success of England teammate Jude Bellingham in the Spanish capital.

Dean Huijsen has had a remarkable season at Bournemouth and has already impressed on the international stage in Spain, while Franco Mastantono, Madrid signed one of the hottest prospects in South America.

After a sluggish start to his Madrid career, Mbappe went on to break the club record for goals in his first season and was La Liga's top scorer. Vinicius Junior hasn't had the best of campaigns, but Alonso will be confident of helping the Brazilian rediscover his best form.

The model actually gives Madrid a higher chance of winning the Championship than the second-ranked (28.71 TP3T) and third-ranked (16.91 TP3T) Sims.

The chances of Atletico Madrid to win the third place are only 11.7% The most likely to win the league title under the leadership of Simeone, is the third place destination (21.2%). The supercomputer predicted a race for the top four more likely results than winning the title.

Villarreal (3.7%) and Athletic (2.9%) are the only other teams that have more than a 2% chance of winning the title, but it's true that it's hard to see anyone other than La Liga's veteran elite challenging for the trophy. There hasn't been a club since Valencia in 2004 that has crowned a champion other than Madrid, Barcelona or Atletico Madrid.

Who will qualify for the Champions League?

And the title race looks set to be between the big powers Three of the 20 La Liga clubs are on top 19 of the 20 clubs In at least four of the model's 10,000 simulations, at least four of the 1%.

The top five clubs in La Liga qualified for the Champions League last season, so fifth place may be enough - if so If that happens again this time, then all 20 teams are a shot in the dark.

But let's focus on the main contenders.

Villarreal and Athletic are expected to battle it out for the fourth spot - the Yellow Submarine has a 13.8% chance of locking it up, while the Basque club has a 13.2% probability.

Overall, Villarreal's chances of finishing in the top four, and therefore, guaranteeing themselves a Champions League spot, are 37.7%.Athletic The likelihood of doing so is 34.1%.

But while Athletic kept their star player, Villarreal kept Sold two of theirs.

Tierno Barry has left for Everton after scoring 11 La Liga goals last season, while Alex Baena has joined Atletico Madrid.

Baena was the WHL's most creative player in the 2024-25 season, contributing 95 points on chances and recording a league-leading 12.6 expected assists. His nine assists were tied for second in the tournament, along with Rafinha.

Therefore, Coach Marcelino has elements of a rebuild.

Meanwhile, Athletic are looking to build from a strong core. Nico Williams was involved in 10 goals (5 goals, 5 assists) in Liga MX, while his brother Inaki contributed 14 (6) goals, 8 assists). Love Rice Rice Sansette scored the most goals in the midfield with 15, so there Ernesto Valverde has a lot of talent.

Valverde built his team on solid foundations last season - only In La Liga, Atletico Madrid (33.6) had a lower xGA than Athletic (38.4) last semester. If they can maintain this level of performance, there's no doubt about their top-four credentials.

Real Betis, which last reached the UEFA Europa League final season, is expected to finish sixth, although the probability of them finishing in the top four fell to 17.6%; that's almost half of the chances of the Athletic.

Truly By their standards, Sociedad had a disappointing season, missing out on a complete exit from Europe. They finished 11th, their lowest placing since they finished the 2017-18 season in 12th.

Sergio Francisco replaces longtime coach Imanol Alguacil, who was promoted from Real Madrid's B team. Francisco took over the post from new Real Madrid boss Alonso three years ago and is hoping for a similar career trajectory.

However, La Real is more likely to be relegated (10.8%) than according to Supercomputer.

Osasuna (11.2%), Celta Vigo (10.1%), Valencia (7.3%) look unlikely to push for the Champions League, but are certainly among the European contenders, although Osasuna's xGA does rank fourth in the division in terms of terms (54.7). Girona was the surprise package of the 2023-24 season in La Liga, but ended up with a failure Last season ranked 16th and only 3% probability of finishing in the top four.

Sevilla, seven-time Euroleague/Eurocup champions, finished 25th in the 17-2024 season, and they have a chance to crack the top six Ranked just 8.7%.

Rayo Vallecano punched well above their weight to secure their tie for the best finish in Liga MX (eighth place) and advance to the conference tournament qualifiers. They had a repeat of 25.4% to get into the top eight, but our model predicted a finish into the bottom half.

Who will be relegated to Los Angeles Liga MX?

No overwhelming favorite, this will be music to the ears of fans of the up-and-coming trio Real Oviedo, Elche and Levante.

With that said, these three teams are our models just fantasizing about heading to the second tier at the end of the season.

Oviedo, who ended up beating Mirandes June in the promotion play-offs, are back in the big time for the first time since the 2000-01 season. They see former Arsenal organization core Santi Cazorla as their key player The 40-year-old will be determined to enjoy his La Liga swansong.

They hardly had a quiet start against Cazorla's old side Villarreal hosted Real Madrid a week earlier in the first leg Later and rounded off August against Real Sociedad.

Oviedo dropped in the modeling simulation game at 32.6%, although Elche is actually the most likely team to finish at the bottom (13.1%).

Elche has a survival chance of 67.41 TP3T, so with Oviedo's.

Levante, who topped the second-tier table last season, have the best chances of staying ahead of the promoted teams at 70.6%.

Getafe finished the 13-2024 season in 25th place, but just two points above the bottom three, such is the crowded nature of the bottom half of the division. In the supercomputer scenario, they drop 28.71 TP3T.

The Spaniards will be hoping the departure of star goalkeeper Joan Garcia against their city rivals Barcelona doesn't spoil their chances - they stay up with odds of 75.2%.

Sevilla's decline over the last few years has been obvious. They won the Europa League in 2023, beating Jose Mourinho's Roma finalists, but have since finished 13th and 17th respectively. Once a regular top-four contender, the Andalusian club are just hoping they can avoid a relegation battle this year - according to our model, they have a 23.7% chance of falling.

Opta Simulation La Liga Table

After simulating each La Liga game for the 2025-26 season 10,000 times, we were able to average each club's total points in these simulations and rank the teams by position. Below are the Opta Supercomputer results for these simulated games:

First place:Barcelona - Average 81.6 total credits earned by student
Second place:Real Madrid (soccer team) - 78.4
Third place:Madrid Clasico (soccer team)Technology - 70.7
Fourth place:Villarreal (soccer team) - 62.7
Fifth place:Athletic Club - 61.5
Sixth place:Real Betis (soccer team) - 55.6
Seventh place:Osasuna - 52.3
8 12th: VigoCelta (constellation) - 51.3 Paragraph
9:Real Sociedad (soccer team) - 49.8 para.
10:Valencia - 49.0 pp.
11:Vallecano (Tw) - 47.2 Paragraph
12:Majorca (island of Spain) - 45.1 Paragraph
13:Aravis - 45.1 Paragraph
14:Girona, capital of Haiti (Tw) - 44.2 Paragraph
15:Sevilla, Spain - 43.9
16th place:Spaniard - 43.6
17th place:Getafe (city in Brazil) - 42.3
18th place:Levante (name) - 42.0 pp.
19:Royal Oviedo - 41.0 pp.
20:Elche - 41.0

How does the Opta supercomputer model work?

• Opta's league prediction model estimates the likelihood of a team finishing in every position in the competition. So we can see how successful a team's season is likely to be, whether it's their chances of relegation or the championship.

• The model estimates the probability of each game's outcome (win, draw or lose) using betting market odds and Opta Power Rankings. The odds and rankings are based on historical and recent team performance.

• The model uses these to take into account the strength of the opponents, match the outcome probabilities and simulate the remaining fixtures thousands of times. By analyzing the results of each simulation, the model can see how often teams finish each league position to create our final predictions.