This season it's hard for me to guess who will make it to the final, but a few favorite teams can always be identified.
Real Madrid and Manchester City are two favorite teams who can be counted on to progress from one stage to another until they reach the final, but we never know what will happen to them in the knockout stages this season.
Real Madrid has suffered 1 defeat in the group stage against Lille, while Manchester City was held to a draw by Inter in the first match. These two favorites did not get as smooth a result as expected, Bayern Munich was the same. At the top of the standings currently is Dortmund with 2 wins, while Liverpool and several other teams with the same points are in the position below. But there are still 6 matches in this round and we will find 8 of them qualify for the round of 16 and the other 16 will compete in the playoffs.
Now it is still too early for that because after all the league phase has just started and still leaves at least 5 more matches to determine who qualifies for the next phase or not so saying some clubs as a reference to the final will be very difficult because it is still quite random even though it cannot be denied that some big clubs must always be seeded and favorites if they say finalists.
We still have to continue to see the performance in the league phase and of course the last 16 draw because after all this always plays a role for a club to reach the final in the Champions League.
The previous 2 seasons we saw a drawing in Inter's favor that allowed them to reach the final without us expecting it from the start, as well as last season with Dortmund who unexpectedly found themselves in the final against Madrid so surprises like this can still very much happen depending on the last 16 drawing phase.