We’re now 75% of the way through the new-look, 36-team league phase of the Champions League, and Liverpool are 99.9% certain of progressing straight to the last 16.
With a maximum of 18 points already in the bag, and ninth-placed Borussia Dortmund on 12 points with two matches remaining, the Reds are as sure as sure can be that they’ll bypass the knockout play-off round, which’d enable the postponed Merseyside derby at Goodison Park to be rescheduled for a midweek in February.
Arne Slot’s team are right up there with the favourites to win the competition outright, with great odds on that eventuality to be found on https://allbets.tv/ug/bookmakers/, but which opponents are they likeliest to face if they do make it all the way to the final at the Allianz Arena in Munich on 31 May?
With the Champions League knockout rounds now predetermined by finishing position in the league phase, rather than being subjected to a largely open draw like in previous years, Liverpool can begin to think about mapping their route to what’ll hopefully be a seventh European Cup in just under six months’ time.
If the Reds finish in the top two of the league phase standings – which in itself seems a given with five points to spare on third-placed Arsenal – their opponents in the round of 16 will have finished between 15th and 18th in the 36-team table.
Those positions are currently occupied by Benfica, Monaco, Sporting Lisbon and Feyenoord, but of course that could all change in the final two matchdays.
Opta’s predicted final table shows that the 15th to 18th-placed finishers will be (in that order) Real Madrid, Sporting, Monaco and Celtic, with the reigning Champions League holders to meet the Scottish giants in the knockout play-off round and the other two clubs facing each other.
We could therefore see Liverpool take on Carlo Ancelotti’s side for a second time this season, having beaten Los Blancos 2-0 at a raucous Anfield in late November. It’d be a captivating tie for the neutral, although many Reds fans would probably rather avoid the 15-time winners of the competition!
Should Slot’s side make it to the last eight, they’d face the winners of a round-of-16 tie featuring a team finishing seventh or eighth against one in ninth, 10th, 23rd or 24th in the final league phase placings.
Right now, that sees Brest or Lille versus one of Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich, PSV Eindhoven or Dinamo Zagreb.
In Opta’s predicted final table, Aston Villa and AC Milan are expected to take the final two automatic last 16 berths, with Dortmund and Atletico Madrid in ninth and 10th respectively, and PSV and Paris Saint-Germain just about scraping into the knockout play-off round.
Liverpool beat the Serie A side in their first Champions League game under Slot three months ago, while they meet the Eredivisie giants in their final league phase fixture on 29 January, by which stage the Reds should ideally be assured of top spot.
If the six-time champions of Europe are in the last four, the team they’ll meet will have finished in one of these positions in the league phase: anywhere between third and sixth, 11th and 14th or 19th and 22nd.
With that encompassing 12 clubs, we’ll skip straight to which teams are likeliest to finish in those placings according to Opta’s predicted final table:
3rd-6th: Arsenal, Inter Milan, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich
11th-14th: Brest, Lille, Atalanta, Juventus
19th-22nd: Benfica, Feyenoord, Club Brugge, Manchester City
Theoretically at least, the topmost quartet are likelier to get to the semi-finals than those finishing between 19th and 22nd, although Man City fans might view it differently, citing their team’s tendency to hit top form from January onwards.
An all-English semi-final would obviously be box-office, and if it’s to be Liverpool v Arsenal, the two sides would meet three times in less than a fortnight, with the Champions League semi-finals taking place on 29/30 April and 6/7 May, and the teams facing each other in the Premier League on the weekend of 10/11 May.
In order to get to the Allianz Arena on 31 May, the Reds may need to get past both Madrid clubs and an English or German big hitter in Arsenal, Man City, Leverkusen or Bayern, which’d make for a fiendishly difficult route to navigate.
Conversely, the best-case scenario could pit them against a Sporting side whose form has nosedived since Ruben Amorim left for Manchester United, a PSV team who Slot will know well from his Eredivisie days, and a surprise semi-finalist in someone like Lille or Benfica.
Obviously that’s a long way off yet, but at least Liverpool fans know that, barring a freakish combination of results, they can ringfence the first two midweeks in March for the Champions League round of 16.
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