What are the chances that the five teams atop the five major European leagues all win the title? According to FiveThirtyEight's projections: just 8.5%!
Put another way, the average gap between first and second across England, Germany, Spain, Italy and France is 3.6 points -- or, put yet another way, just slightly more than one win. At the same stage last year, there was a clear favorite in each league. Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain all won. So did Manchester City, but Liverpool chased them down and pushed it as close as possible. Inter Milan, meanwhile, got caught by their intrastadium rivals, AC Milan.
Despite much more lopsided tables at this point last year, we still got two legit title races, and this season there should be even more. And that's before we even get to the Champions League, where the field is always way more likely to win than the favorite.
So, with a wild five months on the way, let's set the table for what's to come. Using FiveThirtyEight's probabilities, I ranked all 19 teams with at least a 4% chance (1 in 25) of winning one of Europe's six major prizes.
All stats, unless otherwise noted, come courtesy of Stats Perform.