Accuscore going all the way with UEFA Champions League

The UEFA Champions League has reached its knockout stage, with only 16 of the best European sides remain in contest. Round of 16 pairs were drawn according to a rule that group stage winners would face the second placed teams and no teams from same group or same national association could be drawn together. From quarterfinals onwards there’s no such restrictions.

As the draw onwards is yet to be determined, we have to use a mock-draw. Since we want to be sportive and fair – unlike the real draw – we did set the best performing team against the worst and so on, to determine the absolute best teams in this year’s Champions League.

Here’s how the simulation engine predicted the progress before any of the knockout-round games were played. The winner of the pair is bolded and the probability of the team progressing is shown in the percentages. No big surprises, or are there?

The first knockout stage does not offer any big surprises – half the pairs seem to be rather one-sided, but the other half is like to be decided by very small margins, with difference of 5% or less.

After simulating various scenarios of the possible pairings after the round of 16, it was clear that three teams stood out: Bayern München was impressive in all the simulations, both home and away, and Real Madrid was not far behind. Rather surprisingly, for some at least, Juventus was the third best team and Spanish Europa League conquerors, Sevilla were fourth. Juventus did hang on mostly due to low scoring games and they also had the biggest likelihood to draw, along with another defensive minded and hard-working team Atletico Madrid.

Accuscore will keep updating the prediction through the knockout stages, so keep on checking back when the actual draw for the next round is made. Maybe we’ll already have a surprise in the books!