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Football London
Football London
Sport
Liam Wood

Chelsea's route to Champions League glory predicted as Real Madrid start slight favourites

Chelsea are fighting on three fronts as the 2020/21 season gears-up up for a thrilling finale.

Already through to the semi-finals of the FA Cup, the Blues replicated that in the Champions League this week as they booked a last-four spot at the expense of Portuguese side Porto.

In addition to that, they are firmly locked in a tight Premier League top-four battle alongside the likes of Leicester City, surprise package West Ham and reigning champions Liverpool.

They are currently one point behind the Hammers in fifth-place with seven games left to play.

But what are Chelsea's chances of finishing the campaign with silverware? football.london took an in-depth look at a supercomputer to find out.

Chelsea boss Tuchel suggests Champions League is up for grabs

Champions League

We now know who will contest the semi-finals of the most-coveted club tournament in world football.

Goals from England internationals Mason Mount and Ben Chilwell earned Chelsea a routine 2-0 victory over Porto during their 'away' leg at Sevilla's Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium last week.

But while the Blues slipped to a narrow 1-0 'home' defeat at the same venue on Tuesday night, courtesy of a fantastic overhead kick from Mehdi Taremi in added-time, they were ultimately able to progress.

Next up for Thomas Tuchel's side is a semi-final showdown with La Liga giants and 13-time winners Real Madrid.

According to the FiveThirtyEight supercomputer, Chelsea are narrow outsiders for that two-legged clash.

The relevant data used by FiveThirtyEight gives them a 47% chance of progressing through to the final, which is scheduled to take place on Saturday, May 29, in Istanbul.

Tuchel's men have a 17% likelihood of lifting the trophy and replicating their European success from 2012.

Real are, meanwhile, given a 20% chance of winning Champions League title number 14 in Turkey - and they have a 53% chance of reaching the showpiece.

Premier League champions-elect Manchester City are overwhelming favourites to break their European hoodoo.

Pep Guardiola's side are 81% likely to make it to a first final, according to the supercomputer, while their 51% chance of lifting the trophy makes for eye-catching reading - especially given the company they are in.

Semi-final opponents Paris Saint-Germain are currently ranked as outsiders at 8%, despite avenging their loss to Bayern Munich in last season's showpiece during their crunch quarter-final encounter this week.

FA Cup

As things stand, the FiveThirtyEight supercomputer doesn't predict the outcome of domestic cup competitions.

To offer an alternative method, we have converted the current betting odds to a percentage, which in turn offers up a similar prediction of each team's hopes in the world-famous FA Cup.

Scheduled for this weekend, the Blues take on City on one semi-final at Wembley, while Southampton are due to meet Leicester in the other.

With those match-ups in mind, Chelsea have been given an 18.8% chance of winning domestic silverware.

As you would expect, City are favourites at 50.7% for that competition, too, while Leicester and Southampton are seen as 22.2% and 8.3% shots respectively.

How does the supercomputer work?

FiveThirtyEight uses SPI ratings, which have an attacking and defensive component in order to determine which team is going to win a specific game. This is then all built up to see how many points each side will accumulate for when the season ends.

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