The strongest candidate to win the trophy along with real madrid and bayern munich. I don't really see any other strong candidates besides these clubs. City, Madrid, and Bayern are the favorites to win the trophy this season, proving that this is not a farmer league. My reason is caused by there have been major improvements that happened in the club. It will be so good to see city face a strong club in the next stage. Manchester city may still try to continue the result from the previous season as city was perfectly winning the trophy. Pep is trying so hard to keep city in the same track this time. There are no lots of change happened in the club. City is still 90% with the same players like the previous seasons.
I lean more towards Man City potentially facing Bayern Munich in the Final. These two deserve to meet and it will definitely be a very hot final match. I actually have high hopes for Madrid, but judging from the limited players, especially pure strikers, Madrid will have difficulty achieving this in the UCL this season. I know it is very common for us to label Madrid as having a winning mentality, winning the most trophies and so on. However, there is little big competition this season which will be the difference because the presence of a core striker who is hungry for goals is really needed to continue to lead a competition as big as the UCL.
Seeing that Bayern Munich already has Kane and other players who are very solid in attack, Man City only needs Kevin de Bruyne to return to the main squad, but currently there are options like Doku who continues to rise rapidly under the control of Pep Guardiola. Therefore, the strongest candidates who are most suitable for the final are Man City and Bayern Munich.