There are two matchdays of the UEFA Champions League 2025-26 league phase left and much still to play for. Who will qualify and who will be eliminated? We asked the Opta supercomputer…
That’s it for UEFA Champions League football in 2025 – Matchday 6 of the 2025-26 league phase brought the curtain down on the action for this year. But it’s only an intermission.
There are two matchdays to go in the 2025-26 league phase, and they’ll be played on consecutive weeks in January. The final matchday will see all 18 matches take place at the same time on Wednesday 28 January 2026 – and it’ll be chaos.
So, there’s still lots to play for and plenty of time for twists and turns.
But following the MD6 action and ahead of the UCL’s nearly six-week hiatus, we figured it was a good a time as any to revisit the Opta supercomputer’s projections, looking specifically at the league phase.
Who’s pretty much through? Who’s pretty much out? Who’s facing a tense final two matchdays? Let’s dive into it.
The Top Eight
After their comfortable 3-0 win away to Club Brugge on Wednesday, Arsenal are as good as through to the last 16 – if that wasn’t already the case.
They are the only remaining club with a 100% record, becoming just the fourth English team to ever win their first six matches of a Champions League campaign.
Mikel Arteta’s men finished in the top eight in 100% of the supercomputer’s latest 10,000 simulations, but it should be noted that doesn’t mean they are guaranteed to progress; if they were to lose their final two games and all eight of the teams directly below them took maximum points, Arsenal’s progress to the last 16 as one of the top eight would come down to their goal difference.
Currently, their goal difference is 14 better than fifth-placed Atalanta’s, and 13 better than Atlético Madrid’s in eighth. So, while 100% in the sims doesn’t mean it’s a certainty, it absolutely reflects how there’s practically no chance Arsenal miss out.
After all, Arsenal have been so good this season that a three-point cushion over Bayern Munich translated to finishing top of the league phase in 95.3% of the simulations – compare that to 4.3% for the German champions, 0.3% for Paris Saint-Germain, 0.1% for Manchester City and 0.01% for Atalanta (yes, that means they came top once out of 10,000 tries).
But there are seven other automatic spots up for grabs in the round of 16, crucially skipping the potential banana skin – and two extra games – of the play-off round. Like Arsenal, Bayern are practically through already (99.2%), while City (89.5%) and PSG (83.6%) can probably consider themselves safe as well.
Otherwise, though, there’s a lot still at stake.
Nine other clubs finished in the top eight in at least 23% of the latest simulations. Real Madrid (62.9%), Atalanta (61.1%), Liverpool (60.7%) and Atlético (59.6%) are deemed the favourites, even though the latter two are currently ninth and eighth respectively.
Liverpool are presumably boosted by the fact their last game is against Qarabag, though they’ve still a potentially tricky trip to Marseille before that. And who knows, the Reds’ form could have got even worse by then.
Inter are sixth despite their MD6 defeat to Liverpool, but the supercomputer sees them as outsiders to finish in the top eight (35.2%) because their final two matches are against Arsenal (H) and Borussia Dortmund (A).
In fact, that clash at Signal Iduna Park looks like being one to watch. Dortmund are 10th and made it into the top eight in 26.2% of the latest simulations, meaning their tussle with Inter could end up resembling a straight shootout for automatic progression to the last 16.
Barcelona (42.1%) will be confident of sneaking over the line in the final couple of matchdays. They’re as low as 15th at the moment, but their league-phase campaign concludes with games against Copenhagen and Slavia Prague – winning both will take them to 16 points, which was enough to finish eighth, seventh or sixth last term.
Play-Offs Places and Eliminations
Obviously, the teams already mentioned who don’t succeed in securing a place in the top eight will ultimately drop into the play-off spots, which cover ninth through to 24th in the table.
Essentially, anyone placed 15th or higher in the table currently didn’t drop below 24th in a single one of the 10,000 supercomputer simulations, while Marseille (93.8%), Juventus (95%), Bayer Leverkusen (95.5%), Monaco (92.4%) and Galatasaray (92.6%) look very good value to finish in the play-off places.
PSV (80.1%) and Napoli (78.1%) generally did enough in the sims as well, but after them it all becomes a little more uncertain.
José Mourinho’s Benfica, currently placed 25th, are virtually given a 50/50 chance of getting into the top 24, doing so in 50.3% of the sims and being eliminated in the other 49.7%.
Copenhagen currently occupy that 24th position but are given just a 25.8% chance of holding on to it, which will be partly influenced by them facing Barcelona in January.
Villarreal and Kairat have virtually no hope of saving themselves, according to the supercomputer, while Ajax (eliminated in 99.1%), Bodø/Glimt (98.6%) and Slavia Prague (97.4%) will be hoping for miracles.
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