AC Milan know the opponents that they can face in the last 16 of the Champions League, but it has now also emerged who they have the highest and lowest chance of drawing.
Milan booked their place in the last 16 of the Champions League with a comfortable 4-0 win over Red Bull Salzburg at San Siro last night. Olivier Giroud was without a doubt the star of the show as he opened the scoring for Milan with a well-placed header from a corner, while he also set up both Rade Krunic and Junior Messias in addition to completing his brace.
The result means that Milan have made the knockouts for the first time since 2013-14. They can draw any of the group winners barring Chelsea (same group) and Napoli (fellow Italian club). Below are Milan’s potential opponents in the Champions League round of 16 and chances of drawing them:
➤ Bayern Munich – 23.95%
➤ Manchester City & Tottenham Hotspur – 17.8%
➤ Real Madrid – 13.65%
➤ Benfica & Porto – 13.4%
Why are the percentages different for each club??
Its because a team like Bayern who finished first, will have to draw a team that qualified second in their group, however they cant draw a team they have already played (same group), or a team from their league yet. So they only have 4 options PSG, Liverpool, Milan or Club Brugge. Hence we have a higher chance to draw them than anyone else.
Yea this makes no sense unless they have information specific to when other clubs get drawn or the position at which Milan gets drawn after knowing which clubs are already drawn.
UNLESS:
They ran a simulation of all possible draws and from that compute conditional probabilities for all teams. So the rules for facing another club in R16 requires for instance not meeting a club in the same association or in the group stage. So Milan can’t meet Inter or Napoli. Also Milan can’t meet Chelsea again or Napoli can’t meet Liverpool again. This restricts the number of matches possible. If you ran all possible potential draws you can compute the number of times Milan would meet X club. Bayern is particular. Relative to them they’re more likely to meet Milan as they’ve played inter in group phase and Napoli is a group winner further restricting the options they can have as an opponent. So Milan as an option is higher relative to our association’s counterparts. This is likely why Bayern has us as a more likely opponent. Also, sometimes depending on how a test draw goes, it forces us to a particular outcome and it’s probably the case that in those circumstances some teams are more likely to be faced.
TLDR: probability is hard but it might be a fair reflection of Milan’s likelihood of seeing those teams (haven’t ran the numbers though)
Thats a good question!
See above, blood
I would rather Milan play Real Madrid than Bayern or ManCity.
Bayern is the team that i wish we can avoid the most. They basically have the same playing style as Milan just 10 times better.
Our way of playing can maybe surprise Real Madrid or City but back and forth with Bayern can turn very ugly. 8-2 kind of ugly.
Hoping for Porto, but I’m predicting Tottenham and Conte
Gut feel that we will get Tottenham. Think a upset is more likely against City than Madrid though.
Absolutely. Bayern would be the worst case scenario, and City second worst. This is my ranking in order of preference: Porto, Tottenham, Madrid, Benfica, City, Bayern. Yes, I’d rather face Madrid over Benfica. Benfica is totally underrated. They’re young, talented and hungry.
Because Bayern cannot play against Inter and other 3 German clubs for the next round. That is why they have the biggest percentage to face Milan.
Tottenham or Real Madrid will do us more good… Against Manchester city or other teams that play pure attacking and pressing we’d be roasted.
Madrid vs PSG will be Mbappe main actor..
WHY ARE YOU ALL SO ANXIOUS?
Isn’t the point of advancing in champions league to face the strongest?
Seriously!