The current odds according to bookies are Man C and Real about even as top favs with Man C slightly edging it, then wayyyy off are a bunch starting with Arsenal/Bayern/Liverpool/Barca (no idea why bookies rate us this high tbh XD)... then a bit off PSG/Inter... then bit off again Leverkusen, n then the rest quite high odds...

Dunno but it feels a bit strange... also the luck of the draw has such a big effect as we have seen with the likes of Dortmund in the final I guess that makes it good... no idea the new format effects but guessing it wont be good?

Real has won the last 9 CL finals they been in ffs... the last time they lost a one was back in old format in '81 vs Liverpool according to Wiki... pls someone stop them winning it again?

Any surprise teams or even eventual winner possible thats not Real/Man C?

I think Arsenal are a dark horse, as usual. Talent-wise, they should be among the favorites, but they're hard to predict and always seem to lose their momentum at some point in the season.

Liverpool look pretty good, if preseason is anything to go by. They've looked significantly better than Man City. But Liverpool tend to look better than Man City in preseason, and it's just preseason

Man City have a tendency to kind of cruise through the first half of the season, deciding a lot of their matches through individual brilliance rather than everyone working collectively hard, like Liverpool does.

And then they finish the season strong when several players look fresh and fit for the second half of it. It worked incredibly well for them when they had Mahrez and Gundogan among the players who helped carry them through the business end of their last CL winning season, but both of them are now gone and they haven't made the signings necessary to rotate players and sustain that strategy. Haaland's looked tired towards the end of the last two seasons, and he doesn't even have a suitable player who can rotate or substitute with him if he gets injured now. Grealish and Kalvin-Phillips should've been shipped out and replaced, in my opinion.

I do imagine that the CL semis and final will be competitive this year, but I have no clue which teams will be in the competition at that point in time. It makes sense that we're favorites, now that we've added Mbappe to an already competitive team, but I don't think we'll necessarily have any easy road to the final, if we even get there. Like you say, luck of the draw tends to matter a lot. Not only in terms of a team's chances of advancing, but in terms of how much energy they have to expend before they get to the final.

IMO, a club’s reserve strength is a huge factor on teams progress in CL. In the last decade, for several years City was the envy of most teams and Liverpool and Chelsea at one point. I remember just a couple of years ago, we had literally no bench as most of it was occupied with dead wood.

Now all of a sudden, we probably have the best bench of all clubs as City’s bench has really declined. In almost every position, those on bench are capable of starting with othe big clubs. And that is without Davies, who seems likely to be picked up in next couple of weeks. As you said, a lot depends on luck of the draws.

But assuming Carlo can work out the formula for playing everyone effectively, we should be favourites IMO. The weaknesses that we may have are balance and an effective defense with all the offensive capabilities we likely will have.

Man C does seem to have weakened, to me anyway, especially with Alvarez leaving now too. Maybe Pep is trusting a lot of the newer n younger guys, but certainly less of a star studded team nowadays it seems? And depth as u guys mentioned... So bookies making them favs even ahead of Real is surprising...

More detailed look into some of the odds can be strange too, eg. Liverpool are much closer to Arsenal in odds for the CL than the league, so maybe bookies think Liverpool have more experience there or are capable of a cup run more than a league consistency...

Real automatically right up there... I used to think outcomes should balance out as in Real cant possibly win consecutively so much but experience has shown that winning experience breeds more wins

https://www.espn.co.uk/football/story/_/id/40849909/jose-mourinho-fenerbahce-champions-league-qualifying

Poor old Mourinho Tbf though Lille is a decent team, but still love seeing news like this

Re bookies, they are mostly British so as always there is inherent bias in the odds!

https://www.espn.co.uk/football/story/_/id/40855600/jose-mourinho-fenerbahce-more-suited-europa-league

Love this guy as always I always remembered him at Man U or Chelsea I think it was is he belongs to the CL or something n now this

Ajax's penalty shoot-out against Panathinaikos lasted 28 minutes last night. 🤯🤯

A total of 34 penalties was taken. pic.twitter.com/pARhW94q2z

— Football Tweet  (@Football__Tweet) August 16, 2024

Lol, amazing... didnt watch it all but funny enough already... n prolly a player or two missed 2 pens on their turn XD

Draw for pot 1 teams, where is MAn Utd?

City as usual with a cakewalk. Barca not far behind. QSG with the group of death.

PSG is pretty cooked yeah

I actually enjoy this new format, a lot more variation.

Wish we had Bayern later on with players back from injury..

It's unfair with the crowd advantage though. I'd have rather played Pool home and Dortmund away

We play in such a shit stadium that there is no crowd advantage at home lmfao, will be back at Camp Nou in December tho iirc

Are those the order of the games too?

Clutch wrote:Are those the order of the games too?

Actually dont think so. So I hope we get to play Bayern last

The feeling I get when I see the list now is just THERE ARE TOO MANY FKING GAMESSS... my head kinda hurts just looking at it loool...

Generally it seems most get 4 good opponents n 4 poor opponents... not sure if I will actually watch more or less games tbh...

Anyway, Barca not getting any EPL or Spanish opponents n no PSG? Feels weird... again we need all the help we can get

We got Bayern quite early, not gud

CL games on a Thursday ffs

Champions League fixtures have been released!

This will be the first ever league stage with the total of eight rounds played.

/ Source: @DaleJohnsonESPN pic.twitter.com/lAtXIm7Tzs

— Football Rankings (@FootRankings) August 31, 2024