Time can make fools of us all. Even supercomputers. Here, The Athletic‘s tournament projections, powered by Opta data, track how Arsenal have slowly risen to becoming the statistical favourites for the tournament.
Arsenal began the Champions League campaign behind Manchester City, Real Madrid and Inter with a six per cent chance of winning the competition for the first time. After four matchweeks, few were thinking of Arsenal as tournament favourites.
But they won their final four league games 13-1 on aggregate to boost their title odds to 17 per cent, tied with Inter and behind only Liverpool (24 per cent) before the playoff round.
PSG’s elimination of Liverpool in the round of 16 and Arsenal’s convincing 3-0 win in Madrid last week mean they are now the (narrow) favourites to win it all, with a 27 per cent chance.
It’s been a frustrating, injury-hit season for Mikel Arteta’s side, but they could — and should — follow up last season’s quarter-final appearance with their first trip to the semi-finals since 2008-09.
