Why each team will (or won't) win the Champions League: Barcelona's high line, Arsenal's defense and more

Three more games to go, that's what stands between the final four and the greatest prize in European club football. At this stage it doesn't really matter how iffy you've looked on your road to the semifinals, there's always a chance. None of Arsenal, Barcelona, Inter or Paris Saint-Germain enter their final games as rank outsiders, and it seems eminently plausible that most if not all of them could end May as champions of Europe.

Equally, none of these teams are flawless. Every one of them has lost at least one game in the competition so far. Three-quarters of the field might have finished second, third and fourth in the Champions League's league phase, but the team who had to scrabble in to the knockout playoffs on the final day are just as fancied as anyone else. This looks to be an extremely well-balanced field.

So, what might swing the title towards or away from these teams? Let's find out below.

As always, you can catch all the Champions League action across Paramount+, CBS Sports Golazo Network and CBS Sports Network).

1. Arsenal

Why they will win the Champions League: Defense wins titles

There might be another team in the field, Inter, who have conceded fewer goals, but no team is giving their opposition less to work with in front of goal than Arsenal. Over 12 games they have allowed opponents shots worth an average of 0.69 non-penalty expected goals (npxG) per game. By almost every metric, Arsenal's defense is elite. They allow their opposition 16.4 touches per game in the penalty box, nearly five fewer than any other team in the field, and concede just 10.3 shots per game. All that having just come up against Real Madrid's hyper frontline, which had not even registered an expected goal until William Saliba handed a sitter to Vinicius Junior.

The old maxim is that defense wins championships, rarely does that ring truer than in the Champions League. Over the last six seasons the only club to win the competition while allowing more than one npxG per game are Real Madrid. Only four teams have allowed 0.7 npxG or fewer in that time period, two of them made the final in 2021 and the other was the Manchester City side who flubbed their lines from the penalty spot against Real Madrid in the 2024 quarterfinals.

Why they won't win the Champions League: Scoring hot streak cools down

Arsenal are a supremely effective side and like most of this field, it is a lot easier to make the case for them as European champions than against them. Beyond a vague sense that they will need more experience at this level and worries about the absence of a number nine that have not been that keenly felt since Bukayo Saka's return, there is not a lot to go on. If there is a worry, however, it might be that this is a team that has got a lot more than it might otherwise have from the shooting chances it has created.

Their 22.82 xG has resulted in 30 goals; no team left in the field has added more shooting goals (the post-shot value of any effort minus its pre-shot value). Arsenal have got hot in this competition, from Declan Rice's once in a lifetime brace of free kicks to Ethan Nwaneri's stunner. In the long run, their xG ought to regress to somewhere nearer the mean, though there is of course no requirement that scoring output has to balance itself out over the course of a competition. Equally this is a team that has proven itself perfectly capable of turning two-plus xG into no goals in big cup games. Mikel Arteta will hope it does not happen again.

2. Barcelona

Why they will win the Champions League: They have the best player

One of the signs of how effective a contender Barcelona are is that you can't yet be sure which player I'm referring to. Lamine Yamal? Too soon perhaps. Robert Lewandowski? Tempting, but injured... Pedri? It might just be actually. However in terms of Champions League output, it has to be Raphinha. The record number of goal involvements across one season of this competition was Cristiano Ronaldo, who could barely go through a game without netting a brace on the road to 21 in 2013-14. With perhaps three games to go, Raphinha is on 19. He has of course had a couple more games to build up that tally but this is still awe-inspiring stuff from the former Leeds man.

Raphinha leads the competition not only for goal involvements, but for assists and big chances created and only two of his opponents so far in the competition -- Monaco and Brest -- have kept him from a direct impact on the scoresheet. Ahead of him lie legends. Two more goals and he matches Lionel Messi's best European scoring season for the Blaugrana, two more assists and he ties both the club and Champions League record held by Luis Figo.

Why they won't win the Champions League: Their high line gets pierced

It's a pretty straightforward gamble that Hansi Flick has taken since taking the Barcelona job last summer. Play a maximalist version of Bundesliga football -- an aggressively high line and ferocious press -- and trust your forwards and midfielders can apply enough intensity that the defense can't be picked off over the top. For the most part it has worked, particularly in La Liga, where it has come as a shock to a league where so many prize technique over athleticism.

In the Champions League, however, there have been moments of vulnerability. Benfica prised Barcelona apart by going long to Vangelis Pavlidis and winning second balls. Borussia Dortmund had speed down the flanks to fly through the offside trap and might have come even closer to overturning a four goal deficit if they hadn't mistimed a few more of those darts.

Barcelona can be breached. Their backline allows more through balls than any other team left in the competition. They have allowed more xG from counter attacks than Arsenal, PSG and Inter combined.

3. Inter

Why they will win the Champions League: Recent experience

A fixture in the knockout stages over the last four years, beaten finalists in 2023 and a hard out for Liverpool and Atletico Madrid in the other two, this Inter side know their way around the Champions League. Over the last five years, 13 players on Simone Inzaghi's roster have played 30 or more games in this competition. PSG have nine such players, Barcelona six and Arsenal none.

Inzaghi has made a virtue of a squad that has not been radically overhauled. Eight of the players who started the defeat to Manchester City in the Istanbul final are still on the roster, indeed seven of them were in the XI that drew with Bayern Munich in the quarterfinal. Such a settled spine has made it easier for comparatively younger and newer figures such as Yann Aurel Bisseck and Marcus Thuram to come in and make contributions. This is not a team that looks like it is going to shy from the big moments ahead of them.

Why they won't win the Champions League: They don't create enough

Unfortunately for Inter, all that experience has not so far given them the look of a potential Champions League winner. Anything can happen when you get within three games of the prize, but the evidence so far is that they are a step behind the rest of the contenders. A goal difference of plus 14 isn't to be sniffed at, but the fact that they have only conceded five goals seems to be a reflection of good goalkeeping by Yann Sommer and exceptionally poor finishing by their opponents. Maybe there is something that explains why Erling Haaland, Harry Kane and Gabriel Jesus have all had off shooting nights against Sommer, but you wouldn't want to bet on that holding through Barcelona's meeting with them.

Crucially, Inter don't look like they have a championship attack either. The six penalties they have won -- four converted -- is putting quite a significant amount of air in their output in front of goal. Fifteen non-penalty goals from 12 games does not necessarily scream future champions, nor does 1.36 npxG per game. Indeed that is exactly middle of the field across the 36 teams who started the Champions League. Their npxG difference? At 0.33 per game it is less than half of the third best team by that ranking, Barcelona, and has them as the 11th best team across the competition. Of course a few of those above them did not have to run into as many top tier opponents as the Italian champions have. Still, the omens so far do not scream Inter as future champions.

4. Paris Saint-Germain

Why they will win the Champions League: The press

You will by now be aware of the narrative arc that seems destined to end with Parisian hands raising Old Big Ears into the Munich night at the end of May. The last of the big three having departed, Luis Enrique's PSG have become a real team like they have not been since the Qatari takeover. It's reflected in a playing style that seems to be dictated by the midfield not three diffident forwards and an everybody eats attack where the new attackers interchange in unison, rather than just doing what seems right for them personally.

Most of all, however, this new PSG is reflected in how it plays when it does not have the ball. There might be two more games in the 2024-25 sample than the season before, but the image above speaks to the increased efficacy with which they win the ball back. Few teams press like Luis Enrique's.

Their 9.2 passes allowed per defensive action is the second fewest in the competition behind Bayern Munich, two years ago that number was 13.5. No team in the entire competition averages more ball recoveries in the front two-thirds of the pitch than the French champions, who win the ball back 31.1 times per game. Per Wyscout, no team wins more defensive duels.

Why they won't win the Champions League: Too many bad shots

Like Arsenal, there is not an extremely obvious flaw in PSG's CV (there might be for Barcelona, but make no mistake, Flick's side are equally if not more likely to win it than those two). Like every team, injuries in the wrong position might set them off course, particularly at center forward or full back. Assuming full fitness, however, there might just be one issue in their attack, the sort that Arsenal would particularly fancy exposing. Keep them from goal in their first thrusts forward and PSG do tend to indulge in quite poor shots.

There are a lot of high xG efforts in that image above but also a sizeable number of potshots. An xG per shot of 0.107 is a fair way below the average for the Champions League and the 34.8 percent of shots they take outside the box is the highest proportion of the final four. No winner of this competition in the last six years has had a below average xG per shot and where it gets more worrying is that in the big games, the shot quality is dipping. Against Liverpool and Aston Villa they were down to 0.087 xG. When they fly in like they did for Khvicha Kvaratskhelia or Desire Doue no one is complaining, but a diet of hit and hopers like those will mean Arsenal have got something right in the semifinals.