News: 2017-18 UEFA Champions League draw: The Road to Kiev [R]

Seriously? PSG second favorite to win CL? So Mbappe is close to PSG then cause before they were 4th or 5th when only Neymar went. Ridiculous!

 

Feyenoord are 550:1 to win it all (that's the best paying odds, some have them as low as 200:1) so place your bet. I get all my odds from oddschecker which aggregates across multiple online bookies which are generally UK based but take wagers from many countries. https://www.oddschecker.com/football/champions-league/winner

 

Well Zenit has great experience in the Europa League, and actually has a team that can compete. They have some pretty good players, and their historically a good team in Europe. I am not saying they are amazing, but seriously putting teams that are newbies and have hardly any experience over Zenit is just ridiculous, and most of those teams don't even have as good of a team as Zenit on paper.

 

I think that a couple things are going on: (1st) the odds are set by bookies in order to attract bets (and also avoid huge payouts), and most of the money and the gamblers are in England/UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and folks tend to bet on the clubs they know from the leagues they know; (2nd) recent Europa League history has been very kind to Spain (mainly thanks to Sevilla but other clubs too), and while EPL has often ignored it, last season Man U won it and only by doing so did they make the CL, so now EPL and Liga teams all have that "halo effect". Compare that to Zenit or Dynamo, when was the last time they or a team from their league made it to the semifinals of Europa?

Point is I don't know the clubs you mention in terms of their current quality, new signings, I am just pointing out why the odds might be long on them. And if you really fancy them to WIN it all, sounds like a bet could be in order (if you are able to bet on any of those sites from where you live; something I cannot do even if I wanted to).

 

Well in 2014-15, Zenit and Dynamo Kyiv both made the quarterfinals. In 2015-16 both of those teams made the UCL round of 16 and out up good fights in the knockout rounds, Zenit especially. And keep in mind in 15-16 Zenit beat Lyon twice in the UCL group stage, while Kyiv beat Everton 6-0 in 14-15 Europa League season. I don't bet money for everything, but I fancy Milan to win it all honestly or maybe Arsenal if they can find consistency. I just think Zenit and Kyiv are being ignored when their teams have been decent and have actually had history in Europe unlike many of the other teams. Spain has been good mostly due to Sevilla. Celta Vigo and Bilbao had good runs in the past seasons but mostly because of lucky draws. Villarreal made it to the semis in 15-16 but they overachieved that season. Although Villarreal is understandable but the rest not so much.

 

You may or may not put much stock in their SPI rankings of clubs and simulated seasons, etc. it is all statistical analysis, but you can certainly find betting anomalies from comparing these predictions with the betting odds: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/champions-league/
We are given a 20% chance to win, yet remain 7:1 so arguably a "good bet". PSG is also 7:1 betting line but is only given an 11% shot at winning it all. Of course once we drop points our SPI # goes down and so does our chance to win.
90 sec. video from the same site: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-teams-we-like-in-the-group-stage-of-champions-league/

 

calling it from now , LPB is going to get Besiktas in the round of 16

 

I hope we get Besiktas actually. LPB will likely get Man Utd.

 

It would be nice to have Real Madrid get PSG or Manchester City next round.

Even Chelsea wouldn't be too bad.

Don't want them to get Liverpool, because Liverpool don't defend at all.

 

Liverpool are not really a good team at all. Only wins they got in UCL was vs Maribor, a team that I have never even heard of before this season.

To tell you the truth Real will likely get Man Utd, but yeah it would be nice for them to get Man City, PSG, or Chelsea.

Anyway though we are not sure that Chelsea, or PSG will win their group. Not that Bayern would be bad either, but Roma could still win the group.

Sevilla have a decent chance of winning their group as well. If Sevilla win their group, Real are stuck with a tough draw unless they get Man Utd or Besiktas.

 

Odds update time, previously we looked at the pre-draw and post draw odds, I am posting those below (where the "now" means Post-draw, and the other odd you see is pre-draw). To those I am adding the current odds ON THE LEFT, I am not re-ordering the teams so you will see that PSG now is most favored to win it all but still appears 4th from when they were in a 3 way tie for 2nd). I added a few comments in italics and parentheses on the right side, newest odds on LEFT margin:

6:1 Now 4:1 1-Real Madrid 4.5 (best paying odds are 9/2 or 4.5:1)
7 Now 7 2-Barca 6 (still 2nd but now tied for 2nd with 2 other teams)
8.5 Now 7 3-Bayern 6.5
3.7 Now 7 4-PSG 8 (now alone in first)
4.75 Still 12 5-Man City 12 (now alone in second)
18 Now 11 6-Man U 14 (so now leapfrogged neighbor to 5th most favored)
20 Now 16 7-Juventus 14
25 Now 18 8-Chelsea 16
200 Now 20 9-Atletico 16 (of course if Atletico manages to get through that'll shrink fast)
35 Now 22 10-Liverpool 30
0 Now 50 11-Dortmund 33 (already eliminated after 5 games)
20 Now 40 12-Tottenham 35
100 Now 40 13-Napoli 66
0 Still 80 14-Monaco -80 (already eliminated after 5 games - or maybe 4?)
400 Still 80 15-RB Leipzeig 80
70 Now 150 16-Roma 100
150 Now 150 17-Sevilla 125
200 Still 150 18-Porto 150
0 Now 150 19-Benfica 200 (already eliminated after 5 games)

 

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He says hi ...

 

THEN THERE WERE 16 UPDATE:
Above you can see the old odds, here are the pre-draw odds just after Round 6 concluded, so a few of the bookmakers still had odds up for Napoli for instance, but I don't expect big changes till after the draw on Monday:

Most favored to least favored by shortness of odds:
1 PSG 3.5:1
2 ManCity 4.5
3 Real 6
4 Barca 7
5 Bayern 8
6 ManU 16
7 Juve 20
Tot'ham 20
9 Chelsea 22
10 Liverpool 25
11 Roma 66
12 Besiktas 150
Porto 150
Sevilla 150
15 Shaktar 300
Basel 300

 

I predict this is what the draw will look like:

Chelsea vs PSG
Real Madrid vs Roma
Juventus vs Liverpool
Bayern Munich vs Man City
Basel vs Besiktas
Sevilla vs Spurs
Porto vs Barcelona
Shakhtar Donetsk vs Man Utd

 

I'd sign off on that! First 4 would be pretty must watch stuff. Don't think that Barca gets such a nice draw though while that many other favorites have to play each other. But I'll cross my fingers.

 

Well Barcelona can't get us because we already played you in the group. Can't get Real either because La Liga. Only other tough draws they can get are either Chelsea or Bayern. I predict Bayern-City and Chelsea-PSG because UEFA loves those matchups. However with that saying I wouldn't underestimate Shakhtar. They just beat Man City today (yes City had nothing to play for but still), and they beat Napoli at home. I'd say Shakhtar is probably around the same level as Arsenal in the past few seasons.

 

Thanks, I posted about this very situation, but did not have the chart. I knew Chelsea could only draw 3 teams so we were already at least 1/3 likely to face them, and I also knew that we (unlike Betsikas and PSG) could only face 5 of 8 clubs in 2nd pot, but 43.75 is still a bit higher than I would've expected. But frankly if we avoid resurgent Bayern (and we cannot face Real) then Chelsea is the third toughest but I'll take them gladly to avoid Bayern. Tons of talent, great coach, but if we want to win we need to be able to handle CFC and we can.

 

i dont want shaktar,anyone else will do

 

Don't you want the Helmond Cup?

Here's a different ranking of which teams are the best of the 16 teams (I usually look at the bookie odds as a default): https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ec/07/champions-league-last-16-power-rankings

 

ROAD

ROAD TO LYON Update (EUROPA LEAGUE):
Now that it is clear which teams have joined the Milan and Arsenal party, we have a new favorite, Atletico, and several more new faces in the top 6 (Napoli, Dortmund, and RB Leipzig too):
1-Atletico 5:1
2-Arsenal 7.5
3-Napoli 10
--Dortmund
5-Milan 14
6-Leipzig 16
7-Lazio 17
8-Lyon 25
--Villarreal
10-Real Soc 30
11-Atalanta 33
--Sporting
13-Zenit 40
--Bilbao
--Marseille
16-CSKA 50
--Dynamo Kiev
--Spartak Mos
19-Nice 60
--Salzburg
21-Braga 80
--Celtic
23-Steaua 100 (27 Koln 200)


I like the host Lyon at 25 to 1. Atletico makes sense as a favorite but odds are too short to entice.

A few of these teams still have work to do today to get through and once they do so (or fail) their odds may shorten (or they drop out), see Bilbao and Koln for instance.

 

I think Atletico is definitely the favorite. I have a hard time looking past them to be honest. However the way Dortmund have been playing, they have no chance. There are many better teams at the moment including RB Leipzig.

 

FCB's summary of who they could face is a bit loosey goosey on the percentages (40% Chelsea, 15% each of the other 4 teams) versus what Inswinger posted but has a brief summary of how each team is doing domestically: https://www.fcbarcelona.com/footbal...-possible-champions-league-round-of-16-rivals