After the Big Champions League kick-off tonight, Opta analyst ranked each set of arms after last month’s draw.
It is the first year in Newcastle in the new Champions League format, with a 36-team competition and eight games each, and we got the next draw:
- 18/09/25 – Barcelona (H)
- 01/10/25-Union Saint-Gilloise (A)
- 10/21/25 – Benfica (H)
- 05/11/25 – Athletic Bilbao (H)
- 25/11/25 – Marseille (A)
- 10/12/25 – Bayer Leverkusen (A)
- 21/01/26 – PSV Eindhoven (H)
- 28/01/26 – PSG (A)
With an average opponent rating of 92.2, Newcastle United is generally ranking for the hardest list with the luminaire and is the only English team in the upper half of the rankings of the luminaire:
It is certainly a difficult set of competitions that sees us opposite the current favorites to win La Liga and Ligue 1 in Barcelona and PSG, together with the Bundesliga runner of last season, Bayer Leverkusen, current Eredivisies PSV and Portuguese Giants Benfica, who ended Runners in Liga Portugal.
Marseille was also in second place in the French league last season, while Athletic Bilbao celebrated previous term in La Liga and also reached the semi -final of the Europa League.
On the other side of the scale Opta came up with a table of the ‘easiest’ draws, with a friendlier schedule for Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool and Chelsea, to name just a few:
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