But that's not the point of this post, the Champions League is. It's back! After sports had to go on hiatus in the middle of the round of 16 due to COVID-19, the second legs concluded over the weekend. Due to the time off, it will now be a single elimination tournament all held in Lisbon, but we now know the last eight teams. Finishing up an exercise I did after the draw was made, here is a visual of how Five Thirty Eight ranks the remaining squads with probabilities of advancing to each stage:
The way the bracket played out means that the three best teams remaining are grouped together, so the odds of winning the Final are pretty wide open. Bayern Munich is actually ranked right behind Manchester City with the two of them in a tier of their own, but having to face the very next best team in Barcelona creates quite a difficult path to glory. City owns a 52% chance of making it to the Final compared to Bayern's 31% as a result, but the difference in the probability of winning it all is just 37% to 21%. That being said, Germany's eight time defending champions are my pick to win it all and complete the treble like in 2012/2013 after winning 30 of 33 matches in all competitions since replacing Niko Kovac with Hansi Flick in November.
