Portuguese giants Porto have been tipped as favourites to win the Europa League 2024-25, according to Opta supercomputer (via Opta Analyst).
Porto won the Europa League under José Mourinho in 2003 (when it was the UEFA Cup) and in 2011 under André Villas-Boas, who is now their president.
They are the only Portuguese club to win the UEFA Cup/Europa League, while just five teams across the continent have won it more often.
Now under the guidance of Vitor Bruno, assistant to Sérgio Conceição during his seven years in charge, Porto are perhaps a little more of an unknown quantity this season. But they are regulars in European competition and have plenty of talent at their disposal.
Given their status as favourites according to the supercomputer, they’re also unsurprisingly projected to be the likeliest to reach the last 16, doing so in a massive 87.6% of the simulations.
That can probably be partly explained by the fact they have reached the knockouts of one of the European competitions in each of the past 18 seasons, last failing in 2005-06 when they finished bottom of a Champions League group that also included Inter, Rangers and Artmedia Bratislava.
Second favourites behind Porto are Athletic Bilbao, who lifted the trophy in 10.9% of the 10,000 pre-tournament simulations by the Opta supercomputer.
Athletic haven’t won this competition before, despite reaching the final in 1977 and 2012. They qualified this season after finishing fifth in La Liga last term, and with the vastly experienced Ernesto Valverde in charge, they’ll be a match for anyone.
Also Read: South Africa: Ndah Named MOTM In Orlando Pirates’ Win Vs Polokwane City
They are seen more as the best of the chasing pack as opposed to direct rivals to Porto according to the projection model, though, making it to the final – which will of course be played in their own stadium – in 19.8% of the predictions.
Ranked as third favourites are Slavia Prague. They won their first European trophy ever in 9.6% of the Opta supercomputer’s 10,000 season simulations.
Slavia are regulars in recent times on this stage, having reached at least the group stage of one of the European competitions in every season since 2017-18 – before that, their last participation had been in 2009-10.
Their figures are likely helped by the fact they won a Europa League group last season that also included Roma, while they reached the Europa Conference League quarter-finals in 2021-22.
They progressed to the last 16 in 79.9% of the simulations and even got to the semi-finals (31.1%) more often than all but Porto and Athletic. Clearly, the supercomputer sees Slavia as ones to watch.
Tottenham are also considered among the biggest threats in the competition. Ange Postecoglou’s men go all the way in 8.6% of the supercomputer’s simulations, while they’re deemed more likely than Slavia to reach the last 16 (81.0%).
