Good morning, Fear the Wall!

As you can probably tell from the past couple days, Gilles is off doing... something else, and Alex is feeling sick, so as the third-string Daily Bee-er, I’m in for the next two days.

So being the political nerd that I am, I was scanning FiveThirtyEight.com, and decided to take a look at Nate Silver’s running odds for major football trophies in Europe. What I saw surprised me. Let’s take an entirely too-premature look at title odds:

In the Bundesliga, Bayern are still the favorites, with a 75% chance to win the league. This is actually fairly low for Bayern compared to previous years. Dortmund have a 23% chance, with the rest of the league combined constituting the remaining 2%.

In the Champions League, Dortmund still have favorable odds to advance to the round of 16, with a 54% chance. I checked this before the first match against Spurs, and I believe that BVB’s chances were in the 60’s. In terms of actually winning the trophy, Silver gives Dortmund a 5% chance. The biggest favorite is Bayern with 19% odds, followed by Barcelona and Real Madrid with 17% and 12% respectively.

As it turns out, however, BVB are favorites to win a major title. Specifically, the Europa League. The site lists BVB as current favorites to win the Europa League at a whopping 8%, with the next favorites being Arsenal and Real Sociedad at 6% each. Of course, to get into the Europa League, Dortmund would have to be knocked out of the Champions League group stage, and we do not want that to happen.

Ultimately there’s not much to be taken from this other than the fun, as it is entirely too early to make accurate predictions, and so much can happen over the course of the season. Like I said, though, it is fun.

On to the Links:

ESPN FC ( LINK): Here’s a blog that argues that Yarmolenko is not as good for Dortmund as Dembélé is. My thoughts on it are mixed, but it’s still an interesting read

From Barca Blaugranes (LINK): Ousmane Dembélé proudly announced his goal to come back from injury in two months, despite the Barca medical staff saying it would take about 3.5 months.

My word, this kid can’t wait for anything!

From Managing Madrid (LINK): BVB’s next Champions League opponents, Real Madrid, lost to Real Betis 1-0 at the Bernabeu. What’s really astounding, though, is this:

That’s absolutely absurd. Real Madrid have had terrible luck so far this season. They’re still creating tons of chances, so BVB should absolutely not take them lightly next week.

Daily Buzz

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