THE The rout imposed by Benfica against Celtic (4-1), on Thursday night, placed the Eagles at the top of the favorite clubs to win the Europa League, according to data from Opta, updated this Friday morning.
Marco Silva’s team took the lead in Opta’s supercomputer predictions, overcoming competition from the English side of Bournemouth and the German side of Bayer Leverkusen.
In practice, Benfica now has a 15.23% chance of being the big winner of UEFA’s second biggest club competition, surpassing the 13.54% of the German team and the 11.89% of the England team.
At the same time, the Eagles also become the team with the lowest probability (12.23%) of not reaching the knockout stage, with almost a 90% chance of reaching the round of 16 (87.75%).
Reaching the quarter-finals is now at 69.15%, while in the semi-finals it is 44.71%. For presence in the final, which will take place in Frankfurt, Germany, on May 27th, Benfica has 26.89% odds.
And Torreense?
Torreense is the other Portuguese team competing in this Europa League and has recorded one victory and one defeat after the first two rounds, keeping alive the dream of reaching, at least, the playoff to reach the round of 16.
Currently positioned in 19th place in the league table, the Torres Vedras team, which has been playing European games in Leiria, has just a 0.25% chance of reaching the round of 16, according to the same data from Opta.
What’s next for Benfica and Torreense?
After facing AC Milan (2-0) and Celtic (4-1), Benfica is now preparing to face Omonia, from Cyprus, followed by clashes with Lech Poznan (home), Viktoria Plzen (away), OFI (home), NEC (away) and AZ Alkmaar (home).
In turn, Torreense, who beat Lillestrom (2-1) and who were defeated by Sunderland (1-2), will face Ferencvaros, from Hungary, in the next round, before facing FC Ararat (home), Celtic (home), Real Sociedad (away), Lech Poznan (away) and Olympiacos (home).
What awaits Amorim and Paulo Fonseca?
Still on Opta’s predictions for the Europa League, it is worth looking at the cases of AC Milan and Lyon, teams coached by the Portuguese Ruben Amorim and Paulo Fonseca, respectively.
The Gallic team has, so far, six points, like Benfica, but has just over a 50% chance of being in the round of 16 (52.49%), with this percentage being much lower when compared to the final (9.93%).
AC Milan, who were curiously defeated in the opening round by the Eagles, at the San Siro, will have to pedal to reverse Opta’s current predictions, which only give them a 24.38% chance of being among the 16 best teams in the Europa League. As for a possible presence in the final, predictions point to 9.74%.
It should be noted that before this edition of the Europa League started, the big favorite to win the competition, according to Opta, was Bournemouth.
