Nils Mackay
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Nils Mackay
@nilsmackay.bsky.social
Data Science at Opta
Champions League update!

🔹 Arsenal still on top! PSG joins the fight for first after an away win at Barca.
🔹 Qarabağ with 2 wins! Now 75% likely to make the next round.

🔸 Both Dutch teams in bottom 6 teams — heading towards elimination.
🔸 Athletic Club with 2 losses heading towards an early exit.
October 2, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Battle for Top 10, good for direct UCL ticket:
78% —🇹🇷 Turkey (-12%)
60% —🇵🇱 Poland (+5%)
36% —🇨🇿 Czechia (-1%)
26% —🇬🇷 Greece (+8%)

Battle for Top 15, good for 1 extra European ticket:
51% — 🇨🇾Cyprus (+18%)
37% —🇦🇹Austria (-13%)
8% —🇨🇭Switzerland (-7%)
5% —🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Scotland (-2%)
September 26, 2025 at 9:47 AM
🇩🇪 Germany climbing up the ranks of the yearly Coefficients ranking — good for a bonus Champions League ticket.

Two wins this week sees them rise from 5th to 3rd most likely to grab a ticket. England and Italy still favourites.
September 26, 2025 at 9:47 AM
Here's the consequences for 🇳🇱 the Netherlands after 5 losses in 5 games.

🔹 From 80% of 6th down to almost 50%.
🔹 Even chances of dropping below Belgium, up from <0.1% to now 1.7%.

All that while the Netherlands still have 6/6 teams, while Portugal have lost 1 and Belgium already lost 2!
September 26, 2025 at 9:32 AM
New year, new coefficients simulation!

⚠️This year is the first time I've seen where the Big 4 might actually be challenged, as 🇫🇷 France _could_ overtake 🇩🇪 Germany.

Being Top 4 gives you 4 direct UCL spots, which are now at risk for Germany, after some poor seasons in Europe.
September 2, 2025 at 10:23 AM
Finally, here's our Conference League predictions.

Again an English team favourites to win the League Stage — just like Chelsea was last year.

Top 24 achievable for all, even lowest rated teams Shelbourne/Aberdeen with a ±20% chance!
September 1, 2025 at 2:33 PM
In the Europa League, English teams are once again favoured to make an impression.

Here's how we estimate each teams' likelihood of Top 8 and Top 24 in the League Stage.
September 1, 2025 at 1:35 PM
A new #ChampionsLeague season is upon us! Here's each team's likelihood of qualifying for Top 8 or 24, according to our predictions:
September 1, 2025 at 1:19 PM
First place is lava!
May 15, 2025 at 7:37 AM
I love using em dashes (—) whenever I write something, but now it seems people will just think I'm using an LLM. 💀
April 19, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Not many changes on the coefficients table:
🇳🇴 Bodo/Glimt win means Norway overtakes Greece

🇵🇱 Both Polish teams lose, and 🇦🇹 Rapid Wien with a win, which means places 13-15 look mostly set.

🇸🇪 Djurgården lose and thus Sweden less like to overtake Croatia or Cyprus.
April 11, 2025 at 12:48 PM
After Lazio's 2-0 loss last night, the battle for the Champions League bonus ticket is just about over.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England's #5 is guaranteed a CL ticket
🇪🇸 Spain's #5 is 99.8% sure

For 🇩🇪 and 🇮🇹 having 8 teams didn't help, but in the end they also didn't perform at the level needed.
April 11, 2025 at 12:44 PM
[NEW] First blog in a long time!

In which I show a pretty straightforward way to derive teams' attacking and defensive strengths from bookmaker odds.

This method is not only easy to implement, but also very accurate compared to results-based models.

mackayanalytics.nl/2025/04/01/g...
April 1, 2025 at 8:28 AM
I've been catfishing you all for too long — I've actually been bald for quite some years now so figured it was time to update my profile picture accordingly as well...
March 31, 2025 at 12:13 PM
The battle for Top 15 in the UEFA Coefficients ranking is done!

🇵🇱 Poland overtakes Denmark into 15th. At the same time, both 🇩🇰 Denmark and 🇨🇭Switzerland lose their final teams, meaning they can't retake 15th.

This also guarantees Top 15 for both 🇦🇹 Austria and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland.
March 14, 2025 at 3:24 PM
🇨🇿 Czechia ends the season in 9th, after Fenerbahçe's exit on penalties last night means 🇹🇷 Türkiye can no longer overtake them.

🇳🇱 Netherlands ends this year with the 8th highest coefficient, behind 🇵🇹 Portugal and 🇧🇪 Belgium — but maintains 6th in the 5-year ranking for now.
March 14, 2025 at 11:12 AM
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England need 1 more win (or 2 draws), in any of the 3 leagues, to be mathematically sure of a bonus Champions League ticket next season.

🇪🇸 Spain also very close after Bilbao eliminated Roma in a direct match-up. Some really weird results need to happen for Spain to miss out.
March 14, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Poland getting even closer to Top 15 finish, which gives 2 UCL tickets. Only one extra win away from overtaking Denmark.

Likelihood of Top 15:
99.8% — 🇦🇹 Austria (+0.1%)
99.4% — 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Scotland (+5.4%)
80.0% — 🇵🇱 Poland (+15.0%)
16.9% — 🇩🇰Denmark (-11.6%)
3.9% — 🇨🇭Switzerland (-8.9%)
March 7, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Both 🇨🇿 and 🇹🇷 lose their only game, which is great news for Czechia.

A 1-0 win for Fenerbahçe next week will NOT be enough for 🇹🇷. It will put both countries on 43.9, but 🇨🇿 has the better year coefficient which is the next tiebreaker.

Only a Fenerbahçe comeback can save 🇹🇷
March 7, 2025 at 10:20 AM
Bonus Champions League ticket update:

🇮🇹 Italy grabs the last lifeline with 3/4 wins, among one a win against a Spanish team.

🇪🇸 Spain still favoured however with 6 teams still playing for now. England can start partying, only a miracle collapse can see them miss out.
March 7, 2025 at 9:16 AM
The race for the UCL bonus ticket as it has progressed so far.

While 🇮🇹 Italy messed up in the KO-round of the Champions League, it was always an uphill battle, having 8 teams playing rather than 7 for Spain/England.

Hence, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England / 🇪🇸 Spain were favourites from the start.
February 24, 2025 at 2:23 PM
🇮🇹 THREE Italian teams got eliminated this week, in matchups they were expected to win or at least have a good shot.

This has significantly hurt their chances of ending in the yearly Top 2 Coefficients Ranking, which gets you a bonus UCL ticket next year.
February 21, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Post-draw update for the Coefficients Ranking.

🇳🇱 Netherlands has all but successfully held off Portugal and maintains 6th. Twente's exit (and Ajax' missed points) mean it's unlikely they will overtake 🇫🇷 France.

🇨🇿 Plzen makes a comeback and keeps Czechia in the race for 9th.
February 21, 2025 at 2:21 PM
🇪🇸 Spain overtakes 🇮🇹 Italy in the battle for the Champions League bonus ticket (although barely...)

Spain with a measly 0.3 point lead over Italy — and about as many expected points in the remainder of the season. This could really go either way at this point.
February 14, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Three spots remaining for Top 15 (and 2 UCL tickets):

🇵🇱 Jagiellonia with a big win, putting Poland on track for Top 15, at the cost of Denmark.

Odds:
99.8% — 🇦🇹 Austria (+0.8%)
94.6% — 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Scotland (+1.4%)
65.5% — 🇵🇱 Poland (+33.4%)
25.9% — 🇩🇰Denmark (-40.4%)
14.3% — 🇨🇭Switzerland (+4.8%)
February 14, 2025 at 10:38 AM