Ranking the UEFA Champions League field: Who stops Man City ...

You just want to read the rankings. I just want you to read the rankings, so let's dispense with the niceties. The UEFA Champions League group stages start this week, for the last time in this format before UEFA introduces the new "Swiss model" and expands the field to 36 teams.

So, I ranked and tiered all 32 teams based on how likely they are to win the Champions League. Unless otherwise noted, all stats come courtesy of Stats Perform.

Let's get to it.

The 'We'll See You Next Year' Tier32. FC Copenhagen

Despite not necessarily landing in the hardest possible group, the defending Danish champs still have the longest title odds -- by far. The implied probability behind their likelihood of winning the Champions league gives them about a 0.1% chance of winning the whole thing. And that's without removing the vig (the fee books essentially charge to place a bet), so I think we can comfortably say that Copenhagen's odds of taking home the European Cup are actually less than that.

Although they scored only one goal and conceded 12 in the group stages last season, they somehow managed to draw all of their home matches last season -- against Sevilla, Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund. A banana peel, perhaps, but not likely to be much more.

The 'Yes, Sure, Fine, Whatever, You Can Quote That Movie Because We're Saying There's Technically a Chance' Tier31. Crvena Zvezda 30. Shakhtar Donetsk 29. Young Boys 28. Royal Antwerp

Maybe these teams all belong in the previous tier, too. There's not necessarily a great argument that any of them are better, in terms of winning soccer games, than FC Copenhagen.

Red Star (or Crvena Zvezda) are basically the Bayern Munich of Serbia. They've won six league titles in a row. Last season, they won 30 games and drew seven -- yes, the league had an odd number of games -- while scoring 96 goals and conceding 19. But, well, they're perhaps the prime example of the Bayern Munich-ization of the lesser leagues across Europe. By continuing to qualify for the Champions League, they're earning exponentially more money than everyone else in the country; each title then makes another title more likely. Plus, the average team in the Serbian league is terribly weak, and Red Star have already lost twice this season.

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Shakhtar Donetsk: well, we can explain away much of their drop-off in quality -- from the days of Fernandinho and Willian -- based on the fact that Ukraine is currently being invaded by Russia.

Young Boys, per Transfermarkt, have the least valuable squad in the competition, at €56.5 million. Put another way, there are 65 individual players in this year's Champions League who would demand more in the transfer market than the entire Young Boys roster.

And then there's Antwerp, who did win the Belgian league that, according to the Club Elo rating system, is currently the strongest European league outside of the Big Five. Its average team currently slightly outweighs its counterparts in both Portugal and the Netherlands. But Antwerp didn't dominate -- they won on basically the last kick of the season -- and it was their first league title since 1957. They were also in the second division as of 2017. Great story, but there's not a lot before last season that inspires any confidence.

Two of their key players are former Spurs star Toby Alderweireld, who is 34, and former Spurs flop, Vincent Janssen, who somehow is only 29. But like any good Belgian side, they also have a promising teen starlet in 18-year-old midfielder Arthur Vermeeren.

All that said, there is a reason these four teams all have a non-zero chance of getting out of their groups, and it's the fact that they're in the same groups as each other. Red Star and Young Boys share a group, as do Antwerp and Shakhtar. If one can beat up on the other and take all six points, then they'd really need only another couple of results to sneak into that second spot.

The 'If You Squint Hard Enough' Tier27. Celtic 26. Braga 25. Galatasaray 24. FC Salzburg

After a one-year blip, Celtic have reestablished their dominance atop this Scottish league. They're won the past two league titles and 11 of the past 12. Former manager Ange Postecoglu is now doing things with Tottenham, but Brendan Rodgers is back in his place. With his emphasis on control and his tendency to tinker, the former Leicester coach is probably best equipped to manage a team with more talent and resources than everyone else in the league.

The cushy group (against Feyenoord, Atletico Madrid and Lazio) sets up well for the Hoops -- in theory. We just haven't seen Celtic get out of their group in European competition since before the pandemic, so we're taking a "prove it" approach with this ranking.

Braga are a Europa League team masquerading as a Champions League team. Although they snuck a third-place domestic finish ahead of Sporting Lisbon last season, their expected-goal differential (plus-19.4) was less than half of Sporting's (plus-41.5). So far this season, they've been the third-oldest team in Portugal (28.4 years, weighted by minutes played) and they've produced a negative xG differential through five matches.

Like I said, this team should be playing on Thursdays.

Now, there might not be a ton of space between Galatasaray and Braga in terms of overall quality, but the Turkish side do at least seem to offer a good deal of upside. Per Transfermarkt, they have the 19th-most-valuable squad in the competition, which is at least an argument for them to potentially be competitive with Manchester United for the second qualification spot in Group A. (I use this number only because it serves as a decent proxy for overall roster talent.)

Along with some promising young players like Danish center-back Victor Nelsson and French right-back Sacha Boey, Galatasaray have built out the rest of their roster, seemingly, by sitting around in a conference room, playing the "remember that guy?" game, and then signing a bunch of those guys. Fernando Muslera, Angeliño, Wilfried Zaha, Lucas Torreira, Kerem Demirbay, Dries Mertens, Davinson Sánchez, Mauro Icardi, Sérgio Oliveira, Tanguy Ndombele, Hakim Ziyech -- the gang's all here!

As always, Salzburg remain totally different and completely the same. Twenty-four players left the club this offseason, and 24 players arrived. Yet, they're still going to press and likely to trot out the youngest team in the competition. Their competitive prospects in the tournament basically depend on how good the current crop of prospects are. We also can't really know how good any of them are until we see them play against tougher competition than they do in the Austrian league.

One potential wrinkle to look out for: most of Salzburg's top prospects are defensive-oriented players. Three of their four most valuable players on Transfermarkt are defenders. If the press manufactures chances all on its own, could that make them a tougher out than usual?

The 'Not Quite a Dark Horse' Tier23. Lens 22. Feyenoord 21. PSV Eindhoven 20. Union Berlin

Feyenoord and PSV both ripped the Dutch Eredivisie apart last season, and they started this year by doing exactly the same thing. What is that worth in Europe, though? It might be lame to say we'll have to wait and see, but buy me some Chainsmokers tickets and let me drive to the concert in one of those Kias from those commercials with the anthropomorphized hamsters because I'm preaching patience with both of these teams.

Ultimately, I don't think either side is anywhere near as good as the Ajax teams of the Erik ten Hag era, and that squad still frequently struggled to get out of the group stages.

Although Feyenoord won the league last year, PSV were probably the better team and certainly more talented. Unfortunately, they lost their two best players -- Xavi Simons to RB Leipzig and Ibrahim Sangaré to ... Nottingham Forest -- over the summer. They've since spread the newfound wealth around to a number of players, but I just can't get that excited by a team whose leading goalscorer right now is Luuk De Jong. Feyenoord, meanwhile, kept almost all of their key pieces from last season, and could see some internal improvement from what is currently the third-youngest team in the Dutch first division.

Relatively easy groups mean that even with those question marks, both clubs could easily contend for a knockout spot.

The same goes for Lens, who share a group with PSV, Sevilla and Arsenal. The French club, unfortunately, celebrated their first Champions League appearance in over 20 years by cashing in on the contracts of their two best players -- Loïs Openda and Sekou Fofana -- for more than €60 million in transfer fees. Through four matches in Ligue 1, they're in dead last, but doesn't it feel like we're due for a European run from a team that can't handle multiple competitions and suffers badly back home because of it?

Union Berlin are the kind of team that makes me hate the way my brain works; I love how unlikely their rise up the Germán pyramid has been. Soccer should work this way, but teams just don't get promoted from the second division of a major league and qualify for the European Cup within four years anymore. We need more stories like this -- and yet, I also look at Union and think, "Well, since this story is so improbable, it's also unsustainable."

They qualified for the Champions League despite having a negative xG differential in the league last season. If I'm going to dock Braga for similar reasons, then I should do the same thing here. But Union do have one thing helping explain their overperformance beyond pixie dust: they're different.

Here's all of the Bundesliga from last year, plotted by two different proxies for pressing -- passes allowed per defensive action and opponent pass-completion percentage:

Most teams that make the Champions League are used to dominating their domestic league. Union's advantage might be that they never really have.

The 'Could Sneak Into the Quarters With the Right Draw' Tier19. Sevilla 18. Lazio 17. Real Sociedad 16. Porto

Sevilla were terrible in LaLiga last season, and they've followed it up by ... continuing to be terrible this season. Their match against Lens this week pits the 18th-place team in France against the 17th-place team in Spain in a tournament that was initially created to allow all of Europe's domestic champions to play against one another. Champions League fever, baby: catch it!

Sevilla get our benefit of the doubt here because they do tend to show up in Europe, no matter what's happening domestically, and I've been burned too many times by writing off this idea -- whether concerning them or Real Madrid -- as some confidence-based mumbo jumbo. That said, they're still ranked only 19th -- nothing special for a Big Five team.

Sociedad are the much more interesting Spanish proposition. (The Much More Interesting Spanish Proposition would be a good band name; you can have it for free.) They're one of the few clubs in Europe who seem to be trying to keep the tiny creative-midfielder flame alight, with the likes of Martin Odegaard, David Silva, Mikel Oyarzabal and Takefusa Kubo over the past few years.

At 23, Kubo is one of the more intriguing pre-prime-age attackers in Europe right now. He does almost everything at an above-average level except for one skill: passing the ball.

Courtesy of FBCharts (data from Opta via FBref)

Lazio, meanwhile, continue with the theme: a lot of the bigger teams in the Champions League this season are simply just not very good. They're 15th in Serie A with a negative xG differential, and they out-shot their underlying numbers by an absurd degree last year (plus-9.8 xG differential to a plus-30 goal differential) that allowed them to finish second in Italy.

By xG differential, they were the eighth-best team in Serie A. By expected points, which assesses the number of points you'd be expected to win (based on xG) from each individual match, they were seventh. Add in the fact that they lost their best player, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, to the Saudi league, and you're left with a team that's ranked this high only because there are a lot of other disappointing teams like them also in the field.

As for Porto: they will be the 16th-ranked team in perpetuity -- likely to reach the Round of 16, potentially capable of reaching the quarters if the draw sits right, and ultimately fated to get destroyed by one of the tournament favorites.

The 'Giant Shrug Emoji' Tier15. RB Leipzig 14. Borussia Dortmund 13. Benfica

Let's start with the German duo. Dortmund continue to be who we thought they were: capable of winning or losing any game from any position at any moment, except for the big one. They've been incredibly volatile this season, and it's all still added up to the second-best non-penalty xG differential in the Bundesliga through five games.

Drawn with PSG, Milan and Newcastle, they're our lowest-ranked team in the group. This current iteration of Dortmund doesn't have the same kind of superstar-in-waiting they've stretched across the Jadon Sancho, Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham eras. They also no longer can rely on the superstar-in-house, as Marco Reus has finally aged out of consistent minutes, too. They don't offer the upset potential we're at least willing to talk ourselves into every season.

Leipzig appear to be going the other way: capable of mounting a title challenge, after a 3-0 thumping of Bayern Munich in the German Super Cup, followed by best-in-league plus-nine goal differential through four games. However, that has been mostly smoke and mirrors so far in the league, as it comes from a measly plus-1.0 xG differential. Although it might seem like Leipzig have faded the offseason losses of both Josip Gvardiol to Manchester City and Dominik Szoboszlai to Liverpool, it seems more likely that we'll see this team settle into a level that is worse -- or at best, the same -- as last season.

Benfica: might be a lot worse than this! Benfica: might be a lot better than this! I've probably got the widest range of outcomes for these guys. Last season, they were quite easily the best team in a group that included Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain, and that was after losing Darwin Núñez to Liverpool over the summer. Then they lost Enzo Fernández to Chelsea in January and proceeded to destroy Club Brugge in the Round of 16 and push Inter Milan a lot closer than it looked for a spot in the semifinals.

two-legged xG map for Benfica - Inter pic.twitter.com/FPoKrNERBD

— Caley Graphics (@Caley_graphics) May 7, 2023

Of course, they then lost Goncalo Ramos to PSG this summer, but for a number of reasons, they've become perhaps the best club not owned by an energy drink when it comes to replenishing the roster with young stars. Plus, I think Roger Schmidt is a really good, aggressive manager whose ideas on how to play the game align really nicely with the kinds of talented young players he's being given at Benfica. The high-end talent might not be there this season, but there are a couple potential stars in the backline (António Silva) and the base of midfield (Florentino Luís), while Ángel Di María is tied for the league-league in Portugal in goals.

If it all clicks, I can see them making a run. If not, I could see them finishing last in their group.

The 'You Could Be Better, Couldn't You?' Tier12. Manchester United 11. AC Milan 10. Newcastle 9. Atletico Madrid

A good rule of thumb: If you want to be right, just say the opposite of what everyone is saying about Manchester United. If they're on a winning run, say, "Yeah, I don't think they're this good." If they go a couple games without a win, opt for, "It's not as bad as you think."

Now, this does not apply to how the club is being run. The handling of the Mason Greenwood situation was a complete disgrace. On the field, they've been quite poor -- a slightly negative xG differential through five matches -- but it's hard for me to believe that they can spend this much money on a roster of players and not just eventually be pretty decent.

When I look at Milan, I see a team with more attacking and fullback talent than Manchester United. Their midfield might even be better, too, top to bottom. Despite that, they just got demolished by Inter Milan over the weekend. These players might be better on paper together than in practice:

I like having Newcastle and Atletico Madrid together -- the two best teams in the world who don't want the ball. Atletico, well, you know the story by now:

A. Madrid won 7-0 on the weekend with 45% possession. How bizarre was this? pic.twitter.com/kVg820CD92

— Aurel Nazmiu (@AurelNz) August 30, 2023

As for Newcastle, they've struggled somewhat in the Premier League season, but they've already played arguably three of the four best teams in the league -- Manchester City, Liverpool and Brighton -- plus two other teams (Aston Villa and Brentford) expected to finish in the top half.

One of the fun strategic wrinkles of the Champions League is that it mainly pits teams who are used to dominating possession into matches against each other. Teams suddenly have to deal with situations they rarely face in domestic play.

I think one of the reasons Atletico experienced so much early success in Europe under Diego Simeone was because they were used to not having the ball. It wouldn't shock me if Newcastle made a similar kind of impact on the tournament this season.

The 'Sure, These Guys Can Win It' Tier8. Napoli 7. Inter

The top of Serie A looks quite strong this season, so I'm really curious to see how it actually looks compared to the rest of Europe over the next few months.

Inter currently have the best per-game xG differential across the Big Five leagues. (This doesn't mean much in any remotely definitive sense other than they've crushed the four teams they've played.) They actually finished last season with the best xG differential in Italy, and oh yeah, they made the Champions League final and were unlucky not to at least push Manchester City to extra time or even win the match outright:

They lost Romelu Lukaku to Roma but replaced him with the much less likely to go AWOL Marcus Thuram, while Benjamin Pavard looks like a great fit and a sizable upgrade for their three-at-the-back system. The big question is whether the midfield, which still features an attacking midfielder, Hakan Calhanoglu, at the base can hold up against tougher competition -- again.

As for the defending Serie A champs, they lost their manager (Luciano Spalletti) and their star center-back (Min-Kim Jae), but their two most important players, Victor Osimhen and Kvicha Kvaratshkelia, stuck around for another year, as did their entire midfield. They ran out of gas at the end of last season, but we've already seen them hit a pretty high gear in Europe. They're in trouble if either of those guys get hurt; however, if Kvara and Osimhen stay healthy, they should be able to challenge just about anyone in the competition over two legs.

I can't wait for the two matches against Real Madrid in which they inevitably out-shoot Carlo Ancellotti's team 42-8 but lose both games 2-0.

The 'You, Yes You' Tier6. Paris Saint-Germain 5. Barcelona 4. Arsenal

We have the team that can't get out of its own way, the team that can't get out of the group stages and the team that hasn't been here since Barack Obama was still president of the United States. And yet! I think they all have a real chance to win this thing.

PSG are coached by a guy, Luis Enrique, who already won this thing and did it with a somewhat mismatched collection of players, which is what comes with the territory at PSG. However, they're not as mismatched as they used to be.

With Lucas Hernández slotting in at left back across from Achraf Hakimi, the backline makes a lot more sense. Up top, Kylian Mbappé, perhaps the best off-ball winger in the world, across from Ousmane Dembélé, perhaps the best ball-progressing winger in the world, complement each other as well as can be. The center forward slot can then be occupied by either a false-nine-type in Marco Asensio or a more traditional striker like Goncalo Ramos. The bigger question comes in the midfield, where I'm not sure the likes of Manuel Ugarte, Vitinha and Warren Zaire-Emery will hold up as things get more difficult.

The same goes for Barcelona, who replaced Sergio Busquets with Oriol Romeu, who turns 32 later this week and spent last season on 10th-place Girona, and Ilkay Gündogan, who turns 33 next month and is at his best when running into the opposition penalty area. But despite that clear weakness and despite the club's continued desire to sacrifice future prospects for short-term results, Xavi's Barcelona have had world-class underlying numbers pretty much ever since he took over. That's why they won the league last season, and it's why they'd be my pick to win it again this year. Still, I can't shake the feeling that there's something structurally inadequate about this team that will fall apart when stood up to the continued pressure of playing against the best teams in the world.

That last sentence has been applied many times to Arsenal over the years, too. But think of their current situation this way: they've had a "disappointing'' start to the Premier League season, and yet they're undefeated with a per-game xG differential north of one (which is a simple statistical marker of an elite team). While the Kai Havertz situation has already become somewhat concerning -- is it really ever going to happen for him in the midfield? -- they're still eventually burying almost all of their opponents under a barrage of chances by the time the ref blows the final whistle of every match.

Their late-season capitulations against both Liverpool, City and Brighton last season have me a little concerned for a team that hasn't played anyone too difficult thus far this season. And I also have no idea how Mikel Arteta will handle the added load of must-win games midweek. But with an especially easy group (Sevilla, PSV and Lens) on tap, the talent is there for a very deep run.

The 'If Not Them, Then You' Tier3. Real Madrid 2. Bayern Munich

I'm not convinced that some of the previous three teams -- or even the two before them -- won't eventually slide ahead of these two. They're both quite flawed at the moment.

Bayern are way ahead of the rest of the Bundesliga already when it comes to xG differential. And Harry Kane has been feasting, mainly on shots from inside the penalty area, but he's also occasionally broken the opposition backline open by dropping deep:

However, as we've come to learn, it's really hard to estimate Bayern's Champions League performance based on what they're doing in the league. The teams don't have anywhere near as much talent as they do, and while you rarely see them not dominating the ball, you also rarely see them facing a bunkered-in opponent who's looking to limit high-quality chances and then counter at speed. This season, the aggregates look fine, but there have been long stretches in matches where they've just looked completely out of sorts and completely unable to control the game.

It really does feel like a roster designed to play Julian Nagelsmann's bonkers press-your-face off ball that's trying to be shoehorned into the measured, suffocate-you style Thomas Tuchel employed at Chelsea.

In Madrid, they're a perfect five wins from five in the league thanks to the continued heroics of Jude Bellingham, who has scored half of the team's 10 goals. But, uh, I don't know. Shouldn't Real Madrid be able to win games without the 20-year-old midfielder they just signed coming to the rescue every weekend? Bellingham is an incredible player, but I guess it's a little concerning that Madrid have so quickly become The Jude Bellingham Team.

Despite a very easy opening schedule, they're just fourth in Spain in xG differential through five matches. It's early, but it hasn't been as easy for them as you might expect; the past three wins were each by a goal a piece.

Despite all of those concerns, Bayern were one of the best teams in Europe last season, and then they added perhaps the best center forward (Kane) and the best center-back (Kim, from Napoli) in the world without losing any key starters. Madrid, meanwhile, just automatically get a boost in the rankings when it comes to the Champions League. Plus, there really is a ton of exciting young talent across the roster. It's not quite perfectly distributed -- see: center forward and both fullback positions -- but Ancelloti usually figures out a way to get all of his best players out there.

The 'It's Us, Just Us' Tier1. Manchester City

Despite City looking somewhat vulnerable right now without the injured Kevin De Bruyne and without really replacing Gundogan, I think this tier has the biggest gap between it and the prior tier than any other two.

I say it pretty much every year, and I'm going to say it again this time: Manchester City are way more likely to win the Champions League than anyone else. And yet, the most likely outcome is that a team other than Manchester City wins the Champions League.