With 16 teams left in the 2025-26 UEFA Europa League, we check in on the Opta supercomputer’s predictions for the remainder of the competition.
The round of 16 is upon us in UEFA’s club competitions. While the Champions League’s last-16 first legs began on Tuesday, Thursday will see the Europa League and Conference League resume at the same point.
We’ve already looked at the predictor numbers for the Champions League, so now it’s the turn of the Europa League.
The Opta supercomputer has been hard at work, assigning win probabilities to every match as it simulates the remainder of the 2025-26 edition 10,000 times.
It was Aston Villa who lifted the trophy in May most often in the sims, doing so 29.7% of the time.
Villa are hoping to qualify for next season’s Champions League via the Premier League, but they’ve dropped behind Manchester United into fourth after a poor run of form domestically. So, they could perhaps do with having Europa League success as a back-up route, on top of winning a major European trophy, of course.
Unai Emery has plenty of experience of that, too, especially with this particular trophy. The Spanish coach has won the Europa League four times, more than any other manager, and could make it five this season.
As well as winning it with Sevilla (three times) and Villarreal, Emery also reached the 2018-19 final with Arsenal, losing to Chelsea in Baku. Presumably the big issue for him there was that the Gunners don’t have ‘villa’ anywhere in their name…
Villa face Lille in the last 16, a replay of their 2023-24 Conference League quarter-final, which the Villans won on penalties.
Should they win the whole thing, it would make it two seasons in a row in which an English team has claimed the Europa League, after Tottenham beat Man Utd in last year’s final. There can be no all-English final this time, though, with Nottingham Forest on the same side of the draw as Villa.
Forest have struggled domestically this season, finding themselves in the middle of a tense relegation fight, but the supercomputer does rate their chances of enjoying European success. In 8.3% of the supercomputer’s sims, Vítor Pereira was able to guide his team to the trophy (you know, assuming he wasn’t sacked somewhere along the way), making Forest fourth favourites.
They have a tough assignment in the last 16, though, taking on FC Midtjylland. The Danish side already beat Forest, managed by Ange Postecoglou at the time, 3-2 in the league phase at the City Ground in October.
Between the two Premier League clubs are FC Porto (8.5%) and Roma, who win the Europa League in 10.1% of the supercomputer’s sims. Like Villa and Forest, the Giallorossi have never won the competition in its current form or as the UEFA Cup, but they were runners-up in 1990-91 and 2022-23.
Gianpiero Gasperini’s men face familiar opposition in the last 16, as they prepare to tussle with fellow Serie A side Bologna. Should they get through, they will face the winners of Lille versus Aston Villa in the quarter-finals.
Lyon (7.1%) and Stuttgart (5.7%) are deemed the next likeliest to win the competition, ahead of Real Betis (5.6%) and Sporting Braga (5.4%).
Stuttgart face Porto in one of the most eye-catching ties of the last 16, and if they get past the Primeira Liga side, their current chances of winning the Europa League will likely go up significantly. The winners of that tie will face Forest or Midtjylland in the quarter-finals.
Three teams head into the last 16 with less than a 1.4% chance of winning the Europa League, but that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. After all, Bodø/Glimt had just a 0.3% chance of making the last 16 of the Champions League prior to their win over Manchester City on Matchday 7 of the league phase.
Genk (1.3%), Ferencváros (1.0%) and Panathinaikos (0.8%) will be hoping to upset the odds just as the Norwegian side have.
All data correct as of Wednesday 11 March.
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UEFA Europa League Predictions: The Opta Supercomputer’s 2025-26 Projections Ahead of Last 16 Opta Analyst.
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