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Barcelona Are Doing So Badly They're Considered Favourites For The Europa League

Barcelona Are Doing So Badly They're Considered Favourites For The Europa League

Despite being in the Champions League still, Barcelona are actually favourites to win the Europa League according to data analysts.

Barcelona are struggling to stay in the Champions League beyond the group stages, so much so that they're more likely to win the Europa League.

Barca lost 3-0 in midweek to Benfica, without managing to have a shot on target, to go with their 3-0 loss on Match Day one to Bayern Munich, which also came without a shot on target.

The loss led to manager Ronald Koeman announcing his team wouldn't win the competition this year, stating, "Of course we can do better, but we will not win the Champions League."

Koeman needs to worry about even getting in the knockout stages, with his club sitting bottom of the group on zero points ahead of back-to-back games with Dynamo Kyiv.

So desperate are their chances to get through that data analysts FiveThirtyEight already have the Catalan giants as favourites to win the Europa League.

Europa League chances. Image: FiveThirtyEight
Europa League chances. Image: FiveThirtyEight

Barca are given a 9% chance of winning the continent's second tier club competition and already a 55% chance of making the knockout stages.

After the Spanish side, the next five most well fancied clubs to win the Europa League are all teams already in the competition, which seemingly makes more sense.

Bayer Leverkusen, Real Betis and West Ham are all the favourites to get into the knockout stages but Napoli and Real Sociedad are better fancied to win the competition.

Declan Rice celebrates putting West Ham ahead on their way to a second Europa League win. Image: PA Images
Declan Rice celebrates putting West Ham ahead on their way to a second Europa League win. Image: PA Images

Whilst Barcelona are favourites to win the Europa, on 9%, they're actually only 12th most fancied with a 2% chance of winning overall and a surprising 33% change of getting through the groups.

The five times European champions are surprisingly actually more fancied to win the tournament than Juventus, despite the Italians already having six points in their group, following the win over Chelsea on Wednesday.

Manchester City are by far away the favourites to win the tournament, despite Lionel Messi's brilliant strike this week helping them to a loss to PSG, with Bayern Munich are in second place.

Ajax are shockingly considered the third most likely team to make it all the way, having picked up six points in their group and already looking likely to qualify.

How the Champions League is expected to play out. Image: FiveThirtyEight
How the Champions League is expected to play out. Image: FiveThirtyEight
Image: FiveThirtyEight
Image: FiveThirtyEight

Things don't get much easier for Barcelona when it comes to La Liga either, with Koeman's side already five points off the top of the table, where rivals Real Madrid lead the way.

Barca do have a game in hand but it's likely to get worse for them this weekend, with the side having to travel to Madrid to face reigning La Liga champions Atletico Madrid.

Antoine Griezmann and Luis Suarez will almost certainly be even more motivated to score this weekend, against their former team, than they usually are.

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: La Liga, Champions League, Europa League, Barcelona