We have a repeat of the 36 team league format that was debuted last year and widely considered to be a success. There are some tweaks to the seedings for the knockout stage, but nothing that needs to concern us at the moment.

 

The top 8 at the end of the eight league games go directly to the Round of 16, those ranked 9-24 to the knockout stage playoff round (with those 9-16 seeded), teams 25th or lower are eliminated.

 

Three of the 2024/25 semi finalists were ranked top 4 after the league stage (2,3,4) but winners Paris St Germain were 15th and some other big European names failed to finish top 8, including Dortmund (10),Real Madrid (11), Bayern Munich (12), Milan (13), Juventus (20) and Manchester City (22).

 

It makes things very difficult if you finish 9-24 and I know PSG laid down a blueprint to succeed, but they were much improved from January (out of all recognition) and the two extra games were always likely to be less draining on them, given that Ligue 1 doesn't place the same demands on the Parisians, as the other four big leagues do on their teams. 

 

Last season's top 8 featured three EPL sides, two La Liga teams, and one each from Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1. The top 13 is very interesting as it saw three each from England, Spain, Italy and Germany and one from France. With the cream rising to the top across the eight games in terms of leagues, although that "cream" were not always the teams we expected.

 

12 of the top 13 won 5+ games and only #1 ranked Liverpool (7) won more than 6 , everyone lost at least once and four of the top 8 lost twice, so it is very much worth gambling for those five wins. Only one of the top 13 drew more than a single game and only two of the top 19 did so. 

 

I know that it is a small sample size, but all the criteria makes sense, you win little in modern football by playing safe, need 5+ wins and it is very difficult from anyone outside of the top 5 Associations to break the monopoly and into the cartel/closed shop. 

 

There are odds for a top 8 finish and one or two big names seem sure to miss out again (more did than made it last season) and if you want to hunt some value in those markets it is probably with the "lesser" teams from the Big 5 leagues and Lille, Aston Villa, Leverkusen and Atletico Madrid made it last season, although Atleti are very experienced and perhaps they should not be included. 

 

Napoli/Tottenham/Atletico/Newcastle/Juventus/Leverkusen are all priced between 3.0 and 4.5.

 

Dortmund/Atalanta/Bilbao/Villarreal/Monaco/Marseille/ Frankfurt are all quoted between 5.0 and 8.0.

 

I am sure that several of those will look great value come October 1st by which time two rounds will have been played. Personally, I think that is when there are likely to be stronger betting opportunities and maybe even after 3-4 rounds as many teams have a lopsided draw, toughest games early or vice versa and after three rounds last season, four teams were top 8 with three wins (three had 10 points) and missed out, finishing 10-17-18-23.

 

I am pretty interested in seven CL games this midweek..................... the rest of this article is restricted to clubgowi subscribers.

 

Good luck!