Tuesday November 24th
The Champions League is back this week, with the penultimate round of games before the 16 teams that will contest the knockout stages are decided. In this article we’re going to look at some of the big fixtures and give you some tips for where to put your money. The game of the day on Tuesday November 24th is Barcelona vs Roma.
Barca, fresh off embarrassing Real Madrid on their home turf on Saturday have an old score to settle with Roma from the reverse fixture, where ter Stegen was embarrassed by an audacious halfway line effort from Florenzi.
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Barcelona are in fierce form and despite Roma having some classy players it’s hard to see them getting anything from this game. Barcelona’s defense is still porous though and there’s no doubt that they’re more likely to concede when ter Stegen is between the sticks. Where some value might lie is both teams to score and Barcelona to win which you can snap up at 6/4 with multiple bookmakers.
The other interesting tie for Tuesday is Macabi Tel Aviv at home to Chelsea. It seems an unremarkable fixture on paper, but Chelsea have struggled mightily this season and Mourinho is in prickly form. A win tonight and he can ease some of the pressure as they’ll be guaranteed a place in the knockout stages and a shot at topping the group in Gameweek 6. Although Chelsea have struggled and Israel is a tough place to go, Macabi have offered nothing this year and I expect Chelsea to dispose of them relatively easily. Chelsea to win to nil should give you a bit of a sweat and represents decent value at 11/10 which you can get at Bet365 and Bet Victor.
Wednesday November 25th
Wednesday’s games could set the scene for a very exciting last matchday in Group B (Man Utd, PSV, Wolfsburg, CSKA Moscow), but in the other three groups things are pretty much tied up, with only the group winners to be decided. In Group A it looks like Real Madrid will go through as winners with PSG as runners up, barring a string of miracle results.
Notably, Zlatan Ibrahimovic will make his return to Malmo tomorrow night and should get a nice welcome. You can get him at 4/6 to stick one in against his old team if you’d like to revel in their misery. The more interesting question is, will he celebrate if he scores? In the other fixture Rafa Benitez will be praying the the footballing gods that there are no hiccups against Shaktar Donetsk.
In Group B, a win for Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United at home against PSV would put them through, anything less will leave them scrapping with potentially all 3 of the other teams in the group to go through at all. With an away trip to Wolfsburg to round off the group, they really need to take care of business tonight. I think they’re going to struggle and am going to call a draw, which can be had at 7/2 in plenty of places.
In Group C, a win for Atletico Madrid against Galatasaray at home will set up a showdown with Benfica in Portugal to determine who goes through as group winners. In Group D, the showdown is this week. Manchester City pay a visit to Rome to take on last year’s finalists Juventus, whom they trail by a single point. Both teams have relatively tough final games, so this group isn’t over yet.
Have you tried our ridiculously hard Champions League Quiz? No one has gotten all 10 answers right yet!
