A review of the Champions League season so far

We have now reached the halfway mark of the league phase of the 2026/27 Champions League, with Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid boasting perfect records and Slovan Bratislava yet to pick up a single point.

Elsewhere, Como have been the surprise package, collecting nine points from a possible 12 and winning 9-1 at Lens on matchday four. Club Brugge and Real Betis have made similarly fast starts, whilst Atletico Madrid have work to do if they are to seal qualification.

This is the third season since the expansion of the competition to 36 teams, so we thought it would be a good time to compare and contrast the opening four matchdays of each of these three campaigns in order to provide you with some free football tips.

GOALS

Each year, the matches in Europe’s premier club competition appear to get more and more exciting. This is certainly backed up by the numbers when it comes to the amount of goals being scored, with the average rising from 3.07 per game in 2024/25 to 3.42 in 2025/26 and up to a staggering 4.04 in 2026/27:

Interestingly, no individual matchday has averaged fewer than 2.56 goals per game, whilst three of the four highest scoring rounds have taken place during the current campaign.

If you are in the market for over 2.5 goals tips, then it should be noted that this has been the case in 143 of the 216 contests that we have looked at, which equates to an impressive 66.20% in total:

What’s more, aside from the 2025/26 season featuring one more goalless draw than its 2024/25 counterpart, each of the above metrics has risen year on year. Consequently, there should be value to be had in putting together footy accumulators on each of the above markets.

RESULTS

There has been remarkable consistency when it comes to the number of home wins recorded in each of the last three seasons, with an average of nine per matchday in both 2024/25 and 2025/26 and ten per matchday in 2026/27:

Drill a little deeper, in fact, and you will see that every single one of the 12 matchdays has delivered between seven and 11 home victories, so this is definitely something to bear in mind when it comes to making your Champions League predictions.

Above all else, you are looking for matches to be competitive and that certainly seems to be the case here. In fact, in the 2024/25, 2025/26 and 2026/27 campaigns, respectively, 45.83%, 48.61% and 50.00% of games have been settled by no greater than a single-goal margin:

There will, of course, always be some notable hammerings, but the number of these has remained fairly stable from year to year. That said, special mention must be given to Bayern Munich for defeating Dinamo Zagreb 9-2, Borussia Dortmund for beating Celtic 7-1, PSG for winning 7-2 at Bayer Leverkusen and Como for battering Lens 9-1 in northern France.

RECORD BY COUNTRY

If we group teams representing each country together and combine their results over the three-season period that we have been looking at, then we can see that Premier League clubs are by far and away the fastest out of the blocks:

Elsewhere, there is precious little to separate the German, Spanish and Italian representatives in terms of the percentage of available points that they have won, whilst BSC Young Boys, Red Star Belgrade and Slovan Bratislava have not managed to pick up a single point between them across their 16 games.

Premier League clubs currently occupy four of the coveted top eight positions in the league phase table, yet, in a clear sign of their dominance, the 2026/27 campaign has actually been their weakest to date, albeit only marginally:

PERFORMANCE OF PREMIER LEAGUE CLUBS IN FIRST FOUR GAMES

Looking ahead to next season, what the football tipsters should be telling you is just how often English clubs have all triumphed on the same Champions League matchday. In fact, this has been the case three times in 12 attempts across the period that we have been covering.

SUMMARY

Like many, I was sceptical when UEFA opted to introduce the new format, fearing that the big clubs would dominate and that the draw would have an undue influence on which sides advanced from the league phase.

Although these fears have not been completely allayed, the sheer number of goals being scored and PSG’s presence in the knockout phase playoffs in each of their two victorious campaigns means that I have been pleasantly surprised by what I’ve seen.

What’s more, in addition to being treated to some blockbuster ties early in the competition, it is good to see that around half of the games have been extremely competitive. I do feel, however, that the top nations are overly represented, with 183 of the 216 matches (84.72%) featuring at least one team from England, France, Germany, Italy or Spain.