8. Monaco
Sure, it was only Red Star Belgrade and then they couldn’t even beat Dinamo Zagreb before that, but, looking at the bigger picture, Monaco have all the ingredients of a Champions League sleeper.
Ligue 1 has quietly become a lot more competitive this season with a legitimate battle at the top of the table fought among PSG, Monaco, and Marseille, and in league play at least, Monaco look like the most complete side.
There are familiar names to diehard football fans like former Liverpool attacker Takumi Minamino, ex-Arsenal American striker Folarin Balogun, former Chelsea and Juventus midfielder Denis Zakaria, or 2018 World Cup hero Aleksandr Golovin.
However, the biggest gems for Monaco are the next generation of stars who have yet to make it big in the mainstream. Eliesse Ben Seghir, Lamine Camara, Wilfried Singo, and Maghnes Akliouche are three gems who are aged 23 or younger and have all been lights-out in the Champions League thus far.
Monaco do not have a single weak starter in their XI, and with more experience, the young guns should get even more dangerous at the Champions League level as the campaign trudges on.
After all, they were dangerous enough to hand Barcelona their lone loss of the campaign.
7. Bayer Leverkusen
After Atalanta knocked them off their pedestal in last year’s Europa League Final, Bayer Leverkusen have started to look a little bit vulnerable, and they aren’t grinding out every single miracle result in the last minute a la Real Madrid.
Yet Leverkusen remain one of Europe’s best teams and should be considered darkhorse Champions League contenders based on sheer talent alone. Remember, they were undefeated in a 2023/24 Bundesliga that included some very good sides in semifinalists Bayern Munich, finalists Dortmund, RB Leipzig, and underdogs Stuttgart.
This season, Leverkusen boast a 4-0 win over Feyenoord and a quality victory over AC Milan, even as they couldn’t get three points over Brest. Still led by Florian Wirtz in the attack, Leverkusen haven’t lost a match since a rather unlucky 3-2 defeat to Leipzig on Aug. 31.
That’s their only loss of the campaign thus far, and their draw against Brest was actually only their second tie of the 2024/25 season, too. Leverkusen have to prove that they are a tournament favorite, but they are very much on the list of contenders.
6. Aston Villa
So, too, are Aston Villa, and while it may seem a bit strong to have them ranked above Arsenal, I trust Unai Emery more in big tournaments than Mikel Arteta, which is a statement that would have seemed blasphemous a few years ago.
Arteta hasn’t accomplished anything yet in European football when you really take a step back from the hype, while Emery has gotten over the line multiple times in the Europa League with both Sevilla and Villarreal.
At Sevilla, Emery forged one of the greatest Europa League sides year over year, and at Aston Villa, he is bringing those same principles to what is now a well-drilled and deep side.
Aston Villa are much more dangerous this season with the acquisition of Amadou Onana and the breakouts of Youri Tielemans, Morgan Rogers, and star striker Jhon Duran.
The Lions are deep at most positions, and their lone weakness is Matty Cash at right back. Otherwise, Villa have some legitimate big tournament players like Pau Torres, Ezri Konsa, Ollie Watkins, Emiliano Martinez, and Onana in their ranks.
These are all players who have shined on the international stage at various points, and after a convincing win against Bologna, I don’t have any qualms with being a big believer in a team that has consistently ranked fourth in the Premier League.
Oh, and did I mention they pitched a shutout against Bayern Munich?
5. Bayern Munich
Even though Aston Villa beat them head to head, I’m still a little hesitant about ranking Die Roten behind the Premier League underdogs, because Bayern are right there with Real Madrid as one of the most tried and true big-game teams in world football.
Bayern Munich look better under Vincent Kompany this season, and while the former Manchester City defender lacks the big tournament pedigree of predecessor Thomas Tuchel, his hunger and drive have fit the ethos of Bayern.
The club has been a lot more exciting to watch in 2024/25, and they remain undefeated in the Bundesliga with star striker Harry Kane sitting on eight goals.
But Bayern also just got it absolutely handed to them by Barcelona and former manager Hansi Flick, falling 4-1 in what was the most anticipated matchup of Matchday 3 in the Champions League.
At no point did Bayern look like the better side, and they gifted Barcelona more goals than they scored. As much as Manuel Neuer has built his reputation on elevating his team in the biggest games, he looked nothing like the legendary goalkeeper that he is against former teammate Robert Lewandowski.
Bayern are still Champions League contenders on talent and pedigree alone, but it still feels like there’s something missing about the current iteration of the Bavarian giants – and that just might be a lack of overall quality.
Aleksandar Pavlovic’s injury clearly hurt Bayern against Barcelona, but one young midfielder’s absence should not cause a European giant to crumble as badly as it did on Wednesday night at the Camp Nou.
4. Liverpool
Liverpool have been a delight to watch and are the deserved leaders of the Premier League through eight matchdays. They have won every single game this season but one, which was a gritty 1-0 loss to another one of the Premier League’s two best defensive sides in Nottingham Forest.
They have been just as good in the Champions League, too, shutting out one of the most dangerous teams in the competition on Wednesday night, RB Leipzig, even without star goalkeeper Alisson Becker.
Liverpool are a better team under Arne Slot, and a lot of that is thanks to progress made by players like Ryan Gravenberch, Luis Diaz, and Curtis Jones.
Diaz was one of the best players in Europe when Liverpool last reached the Champions League Final, Gravenberch has looked like one of the best in his own right to start the 2024/25 season, and Jones was instrumental in the Reds’ recent victory over Chelsea in league play.
Liverpool are one of the most successful Champions League clubs of all time, and that’s something not a lot of people outside of Anfield appreciate. They are honestly neck-and-neck with Manchester City.
3. Manchester City
But even without Rodri, I do have to give Manchester City the benefit of the doubt over their Premier League counterparts because of their sheer brilliance in the competition over the last three seasons.
Only Real Madrid have been capable of taking down Man City in the Champions League knockouts, and they did so by the skin of their teeth as the literal champions in both cases.
In between those two Real Madrid triumphs, Manchester City embarrassed the Champions League record-holders, and on their best day, they are capable of playing any club off the pitch.
Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne are still the most fearsome one-two-punch in world football, even with Kylian Mbappe joining forces with Vinicius Junior in Madrid.
City drew Inter Milan 0-0 in their only true test of the Champions League this season in what was a rematch of the 2023 Final that they won, but they have also given me no reason to rank them lower than the minimal placement of third that they have earned on the backs of their play in this tournament over the past three seasons.
2. Barcelona
Barcelona have suffered so many disappointments over the years in the Champions League, and it looked like it was same old, same old on Matchday 1 when they couldn’t even get past Monaco.
However, as I wrote above, Monaco are not a team to take lightly, and so losing to them in the first Champions League match under a new manager is far from an embarrassing result; it wouldn’t even be in the top 10 for Barca in the last few years.
Barcelona are like a completely different team under Flick’s management, and Raphinha, in particular, has benefited from the German coach, scoring a hat trick as the Blaugrana demolished Flick’s former employers 4-1.
It wasn’t quite 8-2, but it was a spellbinding performance just before El Clasico that cements the fact that Barcelona are back to being a threat on the grand stage, with the most exciting attacking football in the world.
That’s the standard Barcelona were setting for a decade until the decline started to set in somewhere around 2019 when Zinedine Zidane returned to save Real Madrid from their own banter era.
Now, Barcelona are back on top of LaLiga, and unlike the 2022/23 season, they aren’t doing it by grinding out 1-0 wins; they are flat-out embarrassing their opponents, world-class teams like Bayern Munich included.
1. Real Madrid
Real Madrid haven’t quite looked their best at any point in the 2024/25 season despite landing two of world football’s most coveted summer transfers in forwards Kylian Mbappe and Endrick.
But for 45 minutes at the Santiago Bernabeu against Borussia Dortmund, Real Madrid looked like the most dominant team on the planet again, cooking the same squad they vanquished in the Champions League Finals with five second-half goals to overcome a 2-0 first-half deficit.
Vinicius Junior led the way with a hat trick to cement his status as the world’s best, and while the result actually does very little to assuage doubters of Madrid’s very real defensive concerns, that second half was a firm reminder of the club’s untouchable status in the Champions League.
The magic at the Bernabeu is very much alive, and there’s a prevailing belief that once Mbappe and Co. truly start clicking, the best is yet to come for the Merengues in 2024/25.
As with every year when Real Madrid look remotely great, they are the favorites in Europe’s premier footballing competition until proven otherwise, because they have the moxie of a team that knows they were born to win, no matter the game state or the opponent.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.