I like that title — Champions League. It is not a contest between champions and it is not a league. And shouldn’t there be an apostrophe in Champions?

The only reason I point all this out is that these are the properties that do most to determine the course of the rest of the tournament. Not the missing apostrophe — that only has a limited impact, statistically — but the fact that it is a knockout competition from now on and involves multiple entries from some nations.

The league stage proceeded as the Fink Tank expected. The 16 who progressed were — including Celtic — the teams we expected to see in this round.

What are the probabilities of teams progressing? Dr Henry Stott and Dr Ian Graham fed the outcome of yesterday’s draw into our computer model to work out what might happen next. The model uses two seasons of weighted data based on goals scored in domestic and European matches across the Continent.

As was obvious to the naked eye, the draw was good to the English clubs. Chelsea had the best fortune and have a 72.3 per cent chance of beating FC Porto. It will be tougher for Arsenal (who have a 66.9 per cent chance of victory in this round against PSV Eindhoven) and tougher still for Manchester United (61.6 per cent chance of beating Lille).

It was Liverpool who received the hospital pass, but the situation is far from hopeless. They have a fairly healthy 34.3 per cent chance of squeezing past Barcelona.

If anyone tells you with any confidence that they know who is going to win the tournament, you are talking to a charlatan. Let’s take Barcelona. Before yesterday’s draw we would have given them a 19.6 per cent chance of retaining their title. This sounds a lot and was 5 per cent more than any other team. But it means that there is a more than 80 per cent chance that they will not win the trophy.

This is similar to the situation in the World Cup in the summer. Brazil were favourites and pundit after pundit backed them confidently, but it was much more likely that they would be eliminated than that they would be world champions.

The luck involved in the knockout stages is most clearly illustrated by the relative fortunes of Lyons and Barcelona. Before the draw, Lyons were third favourites, with a 13.2 per cent chance of ultimate glory. After yesterday, they were second favourites (leapfrogging Chelsea, despite the latter’s good draw) with a 15.5 per cent chance. Barcelona’s chances trimmed to 17.6 per cent.

The Fink Tank graphic gives the percentage chances for all the teams in all the remaining rounds.

The computer work also throws up the answer to one other question. Is it better to play at home first or second? The raw data seems to suggest it is better to play at home second, but this is only because in the first knockout round the seeded team play at home second. Once you adjust for this, it is obvious that the advantage is not statistically significant. The order of the matches does not matter.