Champions League Tips

The group stage of the Champions League starts again this evening, but there are certain markets that I'm not going to even consider entering until the knock out stage starts. So here's the vague prediction I promised:


Based on various different angles referred to below, with the addition of some logic and a bit of probability, there’s a pretty good chance that a Spanish team will win the Champions League, possibly beating an Italian team that almost definitely won’t be Inter Milan.


I told you it was vague! Here are some insights.


* Winning Nation: dutch Spain and England for this - 14 of the last 20 winners (70%) of the winners have come from these countries. Back to back Italian winners is unlikely.


* First Time Winner: no, although I wouldn't go mad with the stake or your liability as there's a lot of support for Chelsea.


* All English Final: no, even though there's been one recently (2008). Interestingly, only three of the last twenty finals have been contested by teams from the same country and none of those were played in the country where the country where the finalists came from.


* Emphasising the point directly above, since 1990/91, two finals have been held in England and Italian sides lost them both. In that period, three finals have been held in the UK and Spanish teams won two of them. Further strengthening the case for a Spanish win.


* The winners from the previous season have reached the final the following season on four occasions - AC Milan (94/5), Ajax (95/6), Juventus (96/7) and Manchester United (08/9). So it looks unlikely that Inter Milan will even reach the final, even more so when you remember that no team has ever won back to back Champions Leagues.


* Last year was the first season since 2001/02 that a German side had reached the semi final, and the first time since 2002/03 that an English side hadn’t.