With Matchday 4 of UEFA Champions League (UCL) Fantasy nearly here, it’s time to consult our all-new UCL Fixture Ticker for a look at the best match-ups.
We’ll also cross-check with the bookies’ odds.
By assessing fixture difficulty, we hope to give you a good idea of the players and teams to target with your transfers ahead of Tuesday’s deadline.
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BEST FIXTURES: MATCHDAY 4 IN ISOLATION
Let’s start right at the top of the list with the stand-out fixture of the round: Inter Milan v Kairat. The Italian giants are 1/20 to see off the Kazakh minnows, which is an implied probability of 95%.
Inter have kept three successive clean sheets in the Champions League so far, winning all three games. Kairat, by contrast, were stuffed 4-1 by Sporting and 5-0 by Real Madrid before being held to a goalless draw by fellow rank outsiders Pafos.
The bookies next fancy Arsenal and Atletico Madrid in Matchday 4. The odds-setters give both clubs a 78% chance of prevailing in their ties against Slavia Prague and Union Saint-Gilloise, respectively.
Atletico’s Champions League campaign has been stuttering so far but a bit of context is needed: they’ve lost away at two of the tournament favourites, Arsenal and Liverpool. USG, meanwhile, are fresh from successive 4-0 thumpings in both Matchdays 2 and 3.
Here’s the good news for owners of Arsenal assets: not only are Slavia winless but they’re also ranked rock-bottom for xG conceded in Matchdays 1-3.
Chelsea, who like Arsenal could rotate quite heavily in Matchday 4, are next in the betting market (72%). It’s worth pointing out that Qarabag have been unexpectedly tricky foes so far, however, recording wins over Benfica and Copenhagen before running Athletic Club close last time out.
A cluster of teams, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Villarreal and Barcelona, then follow around the 68-69% mark.
Villarreal are away at Pafos, the team with the lowest xG of the tournament so far. No side has scored fewer actual goals (one), either.
BEST FIXTURES: LONGER RUNS
In this section, we’ve put together longer runs of favourable(ish) fixtures that various teams embark on from Matchday 4 onwards.
This is to help UCL Fantasy managers bring in players whom they can hopefully ‘set and forget’ in upcoming Matchdays, rather than just one-week punts.
The aforementioned Villarreal shoot right up the ticker, with three of their trickiest fixtures – against Tottenham Hotspur, Juventus and Manchester City – now behind them. Borussia Dortmund away won’t be straightforward but the German giants have been far from watertight in the first three Matchdays, conceding in every game. As for Ajax and Bayer Leverkusen, they’re shadows of the sides they were in 2024/25 and both winless in the Champions League so far.
So dismal are Ajax now that, despite featuring prominently in the above graphic, they’re best left well alone.
Like de Godenzonen, Juventus are no longer the European heavyweights they were in the 1990s. However, they’re a darned sight more appealing to UCL Fantasy managers than the Dutch outfit. Both of Juve’s matches against pot-one sides, and one of their all-pot-two encounters, are now in the past. Only one of their Matchday 4-8 opponents, Sporting, has won a Champions League match this season.
Barring a Matchday 5 trip to Chelsea, Barcelona‘s fixture run for the rest of the competition is pretty great. Trickier tests against Newcastle United and (especially) Paris Saint-Germain are out of the way, while bagging Club Brugge as a pot-two side (it could have been Arsenal, Atletico etc) was a real coup in the draw. As for the other club from pot two, Eintracht Frankfurt are a defensive shambles and have conceded a joint-worst 11 goals in their first three European outings.
Elsewhere, Napoli‘s run of four matches is a real stand-out, with the Italian side avoiding any pot-one team. Even their two fixtures against pot-two sides aren’t too daunting. The aforementioned Eintracht Frankfurt have the second-worst goals conceded count in the Bundesliga, while Benfica – now under Jose Mourinho’s stewardship – have lost all three of their Champions League matches so far.
Galatasaray and Monaco each have decent three-match runs, culminating in a meeting with one another in Matchday 6. The Turkish side’s next three opponents have combined for just one win in the Champions League to date (USG’s victory over PSV).
