The European Predictor
As well as being an interesting guide to how well teams have performed this season compared with their European counterparts, the EFL can also be used to give us some idea as to how the European elite teams will fare when they play each other in the Champions League and UEFA Cup knockout stages. Using three important criteria, the EFL will predict a winner for each tie. In the 2004/05 season we got 6 correct predictions out of 8 in the Champions League 2nd Round, we got 3 out of 4 in the Quarter-Finals, and 1 out of 2 in the Semi-finals. If it hadn't been for Liverpool, who defied our forecasts in each round, we would have been almost perfect. In the UEFA Cup we were correct with 3 out of 4 Quarter-Finals and both Semi-Finals. In 2005/06 we were correct with 5 out of 8 Champions League 2nd Round ties and 12 of the 16 UEFA Cup 2nd Round ties. In the semi-finals we got 3 out of 4 right and we correctly predicted both finals. Now it's time for us to predict the winners in the knockout rounds again and this season we got 3 out of 4 in the quarter-finals of both the Champions League and the UEFA Cup, but don't forget, the forecasts may change between now and when the games take place.
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