Friday’s Champions League knockout draw is so unbalanced that every team to have won the competition over the past decade has been placed on the same side of the bracket.
Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Chelsea, Bayern Munich and Liverpool – the six European heavyweights to win the Champions League since 2016 – have all remarkably found themselves on one half of the draw.
Gifted a dream route to the final, Arsenal are now the bookies’ favourites to lift the Champions League trophy for the first time in May after dodging every single winner of the past 10 years.
The Gunners have drawn Bayer Leverkusen in the round of 16 next month before a potential quarter-final clash against either Sporting Lisbon or this season’s surprise package Bodo/Glimt.
Barcelona, who won the Champions League in 2015, are one of the four teams Arsenal could meet in the semi-final, but the Catalans must first navigate a last-16 tie against Newcastle and a quarter-final with either Tottenham or LaLiga rivals Atletico Madrid.
On the tougher side of the draw, Chelsea face PSG in the round of 16 – a repeat of last summer’s inaugural Club World Cup final – and Liverpool take on Galatasaray again having lost to them 1-0 during the group phase.
Friday’s Champions League knockout draw is so unbalanced that every team to have won the competition over the past decade has been placed on the same side of the bracket
Man City and Real Madrid, who face each other again in the round of 16, are among the six Champions League winners since 2016, alongside PSG, Liverpool, Chelsea and Bayern Munich
PSG won the Champions League last season and will face Chelsea in the round of 16
Meanwhile, Manchester City have drawn the familiar challenge of Real Madrid in the round of 16, marking the sixth meeting between the two European giants since the 2020–21 season and the first time in Champions League history that two teams have faced each other in the knockout stage for five consecutive seasons.
Defeating Real Madrid, as they did 1-0 during the group phase in December, would see City take on either Atalanta or Bayern Munich, who are predicted to meet Arsenal in the final in Budapest according to OPTA’s latest Champions League predictions.
Remarkably, due to the lopsided nature of the draw, Newcastle have been given a better chance of winning the tournament than both PSG and Real Madrid at 4.66%.
The current holders have been given 4.64% of a chance by comparison while Real Madrid are only predicted at 2.78% to lift the trophy.
According to OPTA’s supercomputer, the Gunners are in with a whopping 27.4% chance of lifting the trophy, with Bayern Munich (14.28%), Liverpool (12.83%) and Manchester City (10.79%) the next favourites.
Mikel Arteta made no apology for Arsenal’s favourable draw, insisting his team has ‘earned the right’ to an easier route after winning the group phase with a perfect record of eight wins from eight.
‘Well, we are very excited to play the next round,’ the Spaniard said on Friday. ‘We have earned the right to be in a strong position (with) what we’ve done in the group stage, and that’s it.
‘And now we need to start to analyse them and find ways to be better than them (Bayer Leverkusen), to try to go through the tie.’
Asked if the route ahead gives him excitement, Arteta added: ‘Yeah, we are really excited. Obviously, being in the forefront and the way the team is consistently performing gives you a lot of hope and positive thoughts about what is coming.’
