Champions League 2024-25: Has the New-Look Competition Lived Up to its Promise?
by Devesh Jaganath | by Cydias Aujard
Levelling the Playing Field
While many people felt that the new-look Champions League would merely involve the same-old one-sided dominance by Europe’s powerhouse clubs, just in a different and longer format, this week’s round of matches proved doubters wrong, as we saw a few shock results delivered and a serious shake-up in the League Phase standings.
Arguably the biggest surprise at the midway point of the competition came on Tuesday night when Ruben Amorim bid adieu to Lisbon with his most famous victory, as Sporting came from a goal behind to thrash Premier League champions Manchester City 4-1 and move into second place in the standings behind Liverpool. Notably, Opta now indicates that the victory has boosted Sporting’s chances to reach the last 16 of the Champions League by 89%.
Sporting Lisbon are now priced at 1.60 with Bet365 to finish in the top eight places in the League Phase.
Also on Tuesday night, we saw defending champions Real Madrid suffer their second loss in the competition when they ran into AC Milan, who have not lifted Europe’s top-tier trophy since 2007. At the start of the League Phase, Real Madrid were the third-favourite to win this season’s Champions League, while AC Milan were 28th of the 32 participating teams. Los Blancos’ chances of reaching the knockout following that defeat have now dropped to 70.8% from 93.6%, while their chances of retaining the title have plummeted to 5.5%.
As a result, Real Madrid are now priced at a very attractive 2.25 with Boylesports to reach the next round, while AC Milan are now showing up at odds of 2.10.
Never miss a moment of the action this season by using our UEFA Champions League Livescores to stay up to the minute of every match!
Stats Comparison Over Last Two Seasons
To gain a clearer understanding of the key differences produced between the two versions of the Champions League (last season vs this season), below we will take a look at the major categories and the changes in each after the first four rounds of matches:
Metric | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
|---|---|---|
Games | 64 | 72 |
Goals | 193 | 221 |
Avg Goals | 3.01 | 3.07 |
BTTS | 38 | 33 |
BTTS % | 59.38% | 45.83% |
Over 2.5 | 39 | 41 |
Over 2.5 % | 60.94% | 56.94% |
Home Wins | 29 | 33 |
Home Win % | 45.31% | 45.83% |
Away Wins | 20 | 26 |
Away Win % | 31.25% | 36.11% |
Draws | 15 | 13 |
Draw % | 23.44% | 18.06% |
From the table above, we can see a few key differences that could be crucial in your betting decisions for the remainder of the competition. You can also check the most updated prices for each of these categories via our UEFA Champions League Odds comparator!
The new format has delivered a slight increase in the number of goals scored per game, though 3+ goals per game is still the most common outcome.
We have seen a significant decrease in the percentage of matches that have ended with Both Teams Scoring, with this season’s results in this category reducing by over 13%.
Notably, the percentage of matches with Over 2.5 goals scored has dropped by 4%!
Teams playing on the road are having greater joy this season with the Away Win % increasing by almost 5%.
Owing to the away win percentage increase, the number of Drawn Results have reduced by a little over 5%.
Based on the above, we can see that with the new format (and teams only playing an opponent once either home or away), the usual “home advantage” has remained fairly normal, while away teams are experiencing greater success than last season.
The Over 2.5 goals market continues to be the one that is delivering on a regular basis, though not as frequently as in the last campaign, and drawn results have become even more scarce at less than two in every 10 games.
Remember, to keep an eye out for our expert’s UEFA Champions League Predictions on every gameweek, where we use these very same stats to provide our analysis.
