Travis Brooks
Well, we're finally through the group stage of the 2015/16 Champions League. As already covered, Arsenal advanced with exactly the strong performance they needed against Greek side Olympiakos. The victory powered by Olivier Giroud's crucial hat trick was the biggest thrill of a mixed campaign for the Gunners, but now the team is on equal footing with 15 others heading into the round of 16 knock-outs.
So, now seems as good a time as ever for a broad look at what lies ahead, with a few predictions of course.
What To Expect From The Draw
In a way, expectations and the draw are mutually exclusive, because the whole point is that it's inherently random. At this point, we have no idea which teams will be matched up in the knock-out round. We only know that the draw will take place on Dec. 14. That said, we do know a few match-ups that we won't be seeing because of the various rules within which the draw is made.
A guide from Daily Mail explains the rules and seedings fairly concisely, and it's worth referring to as a reminder. To summarise, the eight group winners and runners-up are placed in two different pools before the draw, with each winner to face a runner-up. Beyond that, the only rules are that clubs cannot play opponents from the same country in the round of 16, nor against teams that advanced alongside them from the group stage. In the case of Arsenal, this means there are five potential opponents in the next round: Real Madrid, Wolfsburg, Atlético Madrid, Barcelona, and Zenit. Naturally, Wolfsburg and Zenit would be the preferred opponents, though there are no easy opponents at this stage.
Who Will Be The Star?
We don't yet know what the match-ups will look like, so it's a little difficult (or rather, totally impossible) to talk about specific pairings just yet. But in the eyes of a lot of supporters, the race for top goal scorer is almost as riveting as the actual matches. In fact, in one primer on UCL betting, the top goal scorer is listed as one of the most popular honours to wager on, indicating people really do get caught up in the chase for this illustrious achievement. And it's one we do have some perspective on already.
We may already have a pretty clear candidate for taking home the winner. Through the group stage, the goal scoring stats favour Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo pretty decisively, as his 11 goals are four ahead of the next closest challenger. Bayern's Robert Lewandowski has seven, Zenit's Artem Dzyuba has six, and a number of players (including Giroud) have five. It's very unlikely that anyone will catch Ronaldo at this point, but part of projecting top scorers in such competitions is which teams end up advancing. Should Real Madrid falter early, Lewandowski or even Luis Suarez (with five goals to date) could challenge if Bayern and Barcelona make deep runs.
Who Has The Easiest Outlook?
Again, we can't project specific match-ups just yet, so it's difficult to say which club has the easiest road ahead. In fact, none of the runners-up can really claim the potential for an easy path, given that each of them risks facing at least one of the favourites in Real Madrid, Barcelona, or Bayern Munich. An easy (relatively speaking) first-round pairing for a group winner is more likely, and referring back to the aforementioned seeding guide, we can at least determine the possible opponents for each winner.
Because this year there are very few instances in which a winner could be paired with a runner-up from its own country (which would exclude that match-up from the possibilities) there aren't a lot of possibilities that can be eliminated. Only Manchester City and Chelsea have such a potential conflict, meaning we can cross Arsenal off of each club's list of potential opponents. At least lately, Arsenal has looked to be one of the stronger runners-up, so this conceivably makes the road for Man City and Chelsea marginally easier.
Right now, there's simply a lot of excitement and not many specifics to speculate about. Barcelona and Bayern Munich still appear destined for a semi-final or final match-up, but English supporters should be encouraged with the strong play of Man City, Chelsea, and most of all Arsenal in advancing. It's anybody's tournament, and Monday's draw will tell us a great deal about who's in the best position to keep moving forward.
