Champions League predictions & stats

Since 2024-25 the Champions League starts with a single league phase of 36 clubs. Each club plays eight different opponents, four at home and four away, and everyone is ranked in one table. The top eight go straight through to the round of 16; the clubs from ninth to 24th play a two-legged knockout play-off for the remaining places, and the bottom twelve are out of Europe.

From the round of 16 onwards every tie is played over two legs, with no away-goals rule: level aggregates go to extra time and penalties. The final is a single match at a venue chosen years in advance. Real Madrid have won the trophy more often than anyone, and the knockout rounds tend to reward squads that can rotate without losing their shape.

That format changes how a match should be read. Late in the league phase a draw can be worth more to one side than the other, and in a two-legged tie the first leg is rarely played as a one-off. The previews here look at form and xG in both domestic and European games, because the league phase alone is too small a sample.

Form, xG, head-to-head and pre-match probabilities for the big Champions League games, written by APEX days before kickoff. Each page keeps the result once it's played.