After finishing the preliminary round, which team will enter the semi-finals, we can then determine which team will be the candidate as champion.
If you look at the current standings, Lazio and Atletic Bilbao are the best. They are in first and second place in the standings and they have not yet lost in the UEL. On the other hand, I am surprised by the performance of R.S.C. Anderlecht. They are not a strong team like Lazio and Atletic Bilbao but they have not yet lost in the UEL. Back to the topic, I agree that this is still the group stage. We cannot determine which team will be the champion. I think there will be many surprises in the next matches. I think we have to wait for the quarter-finals or semifinals to determine which team is the favorite to win.
It is not certain, because usually when the competition has entered the knockout round, everything can change and the team that was originally the favorite team actually has to experience a decline and in the end they are eliminated early. We have seen that a lot, even for big teams with very high percentage chances, it can also happen, for example with what happened to Liverpool last season. It could be that in the knockout round later, the team that is considered to have the lowest percentage chance can show an unexpected surprise and succeed in defeating the team that on paper is more favored.