We’re now 75% of the way in which by the new-look, 36-team league part of the Champions League, and Liverpool are 99.9% sure of progressing straight to the final 16.
With a most of 18 factors already within the bag, and ninth-placed Borussia Dortmund on 12 factors with two matches remaining, the Reds are as certain as certain could be that they’ll bypass the knockout play-off spherical, which’d allow the postponed Merseyside derby at Goodison Park to be rescheduled for a midweek in February.
Arne Slot’s staff are proper up there with the favourites to win the competitors outright, with nice odds on that eventuality to be discovered on https://allbets.television/ug/bookmakers/, however which opponents are they likeliest to face in the event that they do make all of it the way in which to the ultimate on the Allianz Area in Munich on 31 Could?
With the Champions League knockout rounds now predetermined by ending place within the league part, reasonably than being subjected to a largely open draw like in earlier years, Liverpool can start to consider mapping their path to what’ll hopefully be a seventh European Cup in just below six months’ time.
Spherical of 16
If the Reds end within the high two of the league part standings – which in itself appears a given with 5 factors to spare on third-placed Arsenal – their opponents within the spherical of 16 can have completed between fifteenth and 18th within the 36-team desk.
These positions are at present occupied by Benfica, Monaco, Sporting Lisbon and Feyenoord, however in fact that would all change within the last two matchdays.
Opta’s predicted last desk reveals that the fifteenth to 18th-placed finishers shall be (in that order) Actual Madrid, Sporting, Monaco and Celtic, with the reigning Champions League holders to satisfy the Scottish giants within the knockout play-off spherical and the opposite two golf equipment dealing with one another.
We might subsequently see Liverpool tackle Carlo Ancelotti’s aspect for a second time this season, having overwhelmed Los Blancos 2-0 at a raucous Anfield in late November. It’d be a fascinating tie for the impartial, though many Reds followers would most likely reasonably keep away from the 15-time winners of the competitors!
Quarter-finals
Ought to Slot’s aspect make it to the final eight, they’d face the winners of a round-of-16 tie that includes a staff ending seventh or eighth towards one in ninth, tenth, twenty third or twenty fourth within the last league part placings.
Proper now, that sees Brest or Lille versus one in every of Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich, PSV Eindhoven or Dinamo Zagreb.
In Opta’s predicted last desk, Aston Villa and AC Milan are anticipated to take the ultimate two automated final 16 berths, with Dortmund and Atletico Madrid in ninth and tenth respectively, and PSV and Paris Saint-Germain nearly scraping into the knockout play-off spherical.
Liverpool beat the Serie A aspect of their first Champions League recreation underneath Slot three months in the past, whereas they meet the Eredivisie giants of their last league part fixture on 29 January, by which stage the Reds ought to ideally be assured of high spot.
Semi-finals
If the six-time champions of Europe are within the final 4, the staff they’ll meet can have completed in one in every of these positions within the league part: wherever between third and sixth, Eleventh and 14th or Nineteenth and Twenty second.
With that encompassing 12 golf equipment, we’ll skip straight to which groups are likeliest to complete in these placings in response to Opta’s predicted last desk:
Third-Sixth: Arsenal, Inter Milan, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich
Eleventh-14th: Brest, Lille, Atalanta, Juventus
Nineteenth-Twenty second: Benfica, Feyenoord, Membership Brugge, Manchester Metropolis
Theoretically at the least, the topmost quartet are likelier to get to the semi-finals than these ending between Nineteenth and Twenty second, though Man Metropolis followers would possibly view it in a different way, citing their staff’s tendency to hit high type from January onwards.
An all-English semi-final would clearly be box-office, and if it’s to be Liverpool v Arsenal, the 2 sides would meet 3 times in lower than a fortnight, with the Champions League semi-finals going down on 29/30 April and 6/7 Could, and the groups dealing with one another within the Premier League on the weekend of 10/11 Could.
Liverpool’s potential path to the Champions League last – which is the toughest/best?
As a way to get to the Allianz Area on 31 Could, the Reds could have to get previous each Madrid golf equipment and an English or German large hitter in Arsenal, Man Metropolis, Leverkusen or Bayern, which’d make for a fiendishly troublesome path to navigate.
Conversely, the best-case state of affairs might pit them towards a Sporting aspect whose type has nosedived since Ruben Amorim left for Manchester United, a PSV staff who Slot will know effectively from his Eredivisie days, and a shock semi-finalist in somebody like Lille or Benfica.
Clearly that’s a good distance off but, however at the least Liverpool followers know that, barring a freakish mixture of outcomes, they will ringfence the primary two midweeks in March for the Champions League spherical of 16.
