By the above metric—70% expected goals, 30% actual goals—Brest were much closer to a Conference League team than a Champions League side.

Given that their country is literally still at war as I type, Shakhtar's performance in the Champions League the past two seasons has been quite impressive: four wins, three draws, five losses, 18 goals scored, 22 conceded.

Due to said war, Shakhtar can't even play in their home stadium.

And due to said war, the team isn't as talented as it used to be since the roster doesn't contain many non-Ukrainians.

The energy drink corporation's Salzburg outpost lost the Austrian league title—to Sturm Graz—for the first time in 11 years last season.

In response, it hired Pep Lijnders, Jurgen Klopp's No.

2 at Liverpool, to his first full-time managerial gig.

Uncoincidentally, it signed, who featured in five games last season, and also brought in on loan from Anfield.

This is similar to the situation with Brest.

Bologna were one of the better teams in last season, rather than a clear top-four side.

In fact, they finished fifth and benefited from the tournament's expansion to 36 teams.

On top of that, they lost their coach, Thiago Motta, to Juventus and their two best players, Riccardo Calafiori and Joshua Zirkzee, to and, respectively.

The 2022-23 Eredivisie champs actually won more points last year than the season prior, but they finished second because PSV put up one of the all-time great seasons in the history of the Dutch top flight.

Although I'm a big fan of Priske, Slot was a transformative manager for the club.

Plus, they lost and (ultimately) to Brighton, while Lutsharel Geertruida moved to RB Leipzig over the summer.

It's really hard to see them not taking a step back this year.

Unlike Brest and Bologna, I do think Girona were a genuine Champions League-quality team last season.

They were able to hang on to their manager, Michel, but their four best players, fullback, midfielder, winger Savio, and striker Artem Dovbyk all left in the offseason.

If they can overcome that and still be competitive in La Liga and in the Champions League, Michel will be able to walk into whatever job he wants next summer.

Unlike Brest, Bologna, and Girona, Stuttgart played at a near-elite level last season.

They finished ahead of! They, too, kept their theoretically in-demand manager, Sebastian Hoeness, and they, too, lost a number of standout players to bigger clubs: center back to Bayern Munich and the pair of center back and striker to.

To replace them, Stuttgart spent the summer signing enough players to field multiple NBA teams.

Spreading the risk—rather than trying to make a couple of big splashes—is probably best for the long-term health of the club, but not necessarily the way to raise your ceiling in the Champions League.

In and, they've hung on to two prospects who are now hitting their primes.

And is an intriguing wing creator who played his first full-ish season since turning pro.

After that, they just have a bunch of random guys who used to play for big clubs:,,,, Mitchell Bakker,, and's brother, Ethan.

After a couple of seasons in a row of transferring out some of the most expensive strikers and central midfielders in the history of the sport, Benfica's next uber-prospect is 20-year-old center back Antonio Silva.

A bunch more talent is stacked in midfield, but up top, the plan seems to be 25-year-old, whom they spent €18 million to acquire from.

Pavlidis lit up the last season, but the number of strikers who did that and then fizzled out elsewhere is quite long.

Can they run it back—and will it translate to European success?Unlike all of the other aforementioned clubs that had outlier-great seasons, PSV both retained their manager and all of their key players.

Through five Eredivisie games this season, they've scored 20 goals and conceded three.

Americans and Richy Ledezah have both started all five matches.

Speaking of Americans, has picked up where he left off last season: starting about half of the matches, while putting up fantastic underlying numbers that don't lead to many goals.

Last season: 8.

5 non-penalty expected goals, 7 actual goals.

This year:Here's another not-quite-elite club that had a great season last year and then hung on to their manager and all of their key players.

Sporting won their second Portuguese league title in four years under Ruben Amorim, and it had been 19 years since Sporting won the league before Amorim & Co.

did it for the first time.

Striker Viktor Gyokere and center backs and could all be gone for big money in a year, and so too could Amorim.

Among the teams outside of the Big Five leagues, Sporting are best positioned to make a dark-horse run.

This was one of the more impressive European performances you'll ever see from an away team at Anfield: I've got them slated here out of respect for Gianpiero Gasperini, and because last year's run to the Europa League title, defeating Liverpool and Leverkusen along the way, provides some proof of concept.

But Atalanta have been bad to start the Serie A season.

They've conceded more xG than they've created in three of their four matches, and in the other, they were down 4-0 to Inter Milan within an hour.

Although they were a Pot 1 team for the draw, I've got them rated as barely a Pot 2 team.

They did snap Bayer Leverkusen's year-plus unbeaten run in the, and they did do it on the road.

But, c'mon: might be the most underrated attacker in this tournament—he has 42 non-penalty goals and 11 assists over the past two seasons, in Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga—and and are good-to-great prospects, depending on who you're talking to.

But the talent and depth behind those three just isn't what it once was.

Four games in, this is a two-man team.

Both and have been lights-out—the former averaging 0.

82 non-penalty expected goals plus assists per 90 minutes, the latter even better at 0.

93.

So, uh, shouldn't they be higher, both in these rankings and in the Serie A table, where they're ninth? The problem so far is that no one else is doing all that much