The 2025/26 Champions League season is still in its play-off stages for another week, but on Aug. 28, those matches will end and the league phase will be finalized, setting in motion the start of the second campaign in this new format.
PSG finally conquered European football last season in their first one without superstar Kylian Mbappe – or Neymar for that matter – following a more team-oriented approach under Luis Enrique.
They will no doubt be the favorites again this season, but as in any year, the field is wide open with so many great contenders around European football. Before the 2025/26 Champions League campaign truly gets underway in mid-September with the first league phase matches, let’s start with some predictions.
Some leagues are more clear-cut than others – looking at you, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 – but let’s do something a little bit different than your basic predictions and try to select just one team from each of the big five leagues in European football that has the greatest chance of actually winning the Champions League this season.
Premier League: Liverpool
Liverpool pretty much ran away with the Premier League title last season, which is honestly unusual, given that even Manchester City have been pushed hard by either Liverpool or Arsenal in each of the past few seasons.
The Premier League may be the most competitive league in the world, but that wasn’t the case last season. Man City faltered badly, and while Arsenal failed to take advantage this time around, a Liverpool squad galvanized by Ryan Gravenberch’s breakout and Arne Slot’s fresh ideas took their place as kings.
And Liverpool weren’t far away from winning the Champions League either. Sure, they were knocked out in the Round of 16, but they also lost by the slightest of margins to the eventual champions, PSG, and were the only team that actually pushed the Parisians to their brink.
If anything, Liverpool only got stronger this summer, and even if they don’t manage to sign Alexander Isak, they still bagged an excellent new striker in Hugo Ekitike, who already showed what he can do on Matchday 1 against Bournemouth.
The real crown jewel of the incoming class, though, is playmaker Florian Wirtz, who is a multi-time Bundesliga Player of the Season winner and led Bayer Leverkusen to an undefeated season all before turning 23.
Liverpool have one of the most complete squads in European football, and if anyone in England can be considered on par with the Real Madrid and Barcelona superteams, then it’s the Reds, who turned Madrid into mush in last year’s Champions League.
La Liga: Barcelona
Truthfully, the only difficult league to pick a favorite from is La Liga, and you could go either way on Barcelona or Real Madrid, depending on how bullish you are on Leverkusen’s undefeated architect, Xabi Alonso, turning around his former club immediately.
Carlo Ancelotti, despite winning the 2023/24 Champions League crown, clearly went rancid in terms of his tactical ideas. And even his man-management was beginning to backfire, with infighting and unrest brewing within the Real Madrid ranks after the addition of Kylian “I don’t press” Mbappe.
Real Madrid played less like a team and more like that group of five unemployed men who ruin every football pick-up match by shooting and never passing. Madrid were technically in a La Liga title race up until the end of the season, but given how frequently Barcelona embarrassed them head-to-head (4-0, right?), it’s hard to say that Los Merengues were on par with the Blaugrana.
Meanwhile, Barcelona were two miracle goals from Inter Milan – and more than two miracle saves from Yann Sommer – away from reaching the Champions League Final against former winger Ousmane Dembele.
Real Madrid got better this summer with the addition of Dean Huijsen to the defense, and Trent Alexander-Arnold and Alvaro Carreras could prove to be timely upgrades on the flank, too. Then there’s also another young gem, Franco Mastantuono, to watch in the attack.
But I’m not sure those additions make Real Madrid better than Barcelona. Hansi Flick had Barca playing some of the best football in Europe last season, and Lamine Yamal is only going to get better with experience.
The same can be said for pretty much half of the XI. Pau Cubarsi, Marc Casado, Marc Bernal, Alejandro Balde, new goalkeeper Joan Garcia, and so many others are nowhere near their primes, and I think that combination of youth and camaraderie with Flick at the helm still gives Barca the edge.
Serie A: Inter Milan
To be honest, Inter Milan aren’t as convincing without Simone Inzaghi as their manager, because Inzaghi made a lot of the players on Inter look better than they actually were, especially some of their aging midfielders.
Inter made some moves this summer window, including youngsters Luis Henrique and Ange-Yoan Bonny, but they didn’t add any proven stars who can start right away.
When you look at the overall talent in Inter’s squad and compare it to everyone else on this list, you can see that there is a gulf in class between them and the others.
That Inzaghi-injected match is no longer there, and moxie can only take the Nerazzurri so far. They’ve been in the Champions League Final in two of the last three seasons, but they’ve also blown more titles than they’ve won, including last season’s Scudetto to Napoli.
Inter are good, but they are almost by default the favorites in Serie A, a league that is very interesting and unpredictable, but also severely lacking in star power compared to La Liga and the Premier League. And they don’t have the top-end talent of a Bayern or PSG.
Bundesliga: Bayern Munich
Bayern Munich’s best player of the 2025/26 Bundesliga season may have actually been Michael Olise, who had 12 goals and 15 assists as a key creative and goal-scoring force alongside Harry Kane and Jamal Musiala.
The addition of Olise alone was enough to bring Bayern back to the Bundesliga’s summit, and while Musiala’s injury at the Club World Cup stings badly, Bayern should actually be in a better position this season than last because of the signing of Liverpool star Luis Diaz.
With his explosive dribbling style and tireless work rate on the ball, Diaz is the perfect counterbalance on the left-hand side to Olise’s cool and collected work on the right.
Having a two-headed wing attack makes such a big difference, because Olise will have even more room to produce those Raphinha-esque in-swinging crosses while cutting inside a la Arjen Robben to deliver, potentially, close to 20 goals in the Bundesliga.
Bayern have question marks in the Champions League and a manager in Vincent Kompany who regularly gets outclassed by true top coaches, such as former Bayern treble-winner Hansi Flick, but he’s still young and learning how to coach at the highest level. He will improve.
There’s more to like than dislike about Bayern, and while they don’t quite have the midfield and defensive pieces to be on the same par as a PSG or Liverpool in terms of being Champions League favorites, they are in the mix and certainly the only team from Germany worth even considering here.
Ligue 1: PSG
PSG may have embarrassed themselves in the Club World Cup, but we all know that the Champions League is an entirely different beast in nature – and it’s one that, having just conquered at long last, PSG may be even more dangerous in.
The only Ligue 1 giants standing, PSG didn’t do a whole lot in the summer transfer window, and you can argue that they took a step back by replacing 2024/25 Champions League hero Gianluigi Donnarumma – without whom they probably wouldn’t have won the tournament – with young ascending keeper Lucas Chevalier from Lille.
However, the nucleus of outfield players remains the same. Ousmane Dembele, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Desire Doue, and Bradley Barcola are as talented and exciting an attacking quartet as you’ll find in European football, even compared to those in Spain and Liverpool.
PSG have great balance in their squad in midfield and defense with the right mix of veteran players and young stars on the rise throughout their squad. It’s hard to say who the true favorites are in the Champions League with about four teams being pretty even depending on how injuries and player development proceed throughout the 2025/26 season, and because of that, reigning champions PSG are the favorites until proven otherwise.
Joe Soriano is the editor of The Trivela Effect and a FanSided Hall of Famer who has covered world football since 2011. He’s led top digital communities like The Real Champs (Real Madrid) and has contributed to sites covering Tottenham, Liverpool, Juventus, and Schalke. Joe’s work has appeared in ESPN, Bleacher Report, and Sports Illustrated. He also helped manage NFL Spin Zone and Daily DDT, covering the NFL and pro wrestling, respectively.