Champions League Betting Preview

CL - Matchday 6 Best Bets
By Toby Maxtone-Smith
VegasInsider.com

The final round of group games in the Champions League is full of contrasts. On the one hand, you have games like Real Madrid vs. Ludogorets Razgrad and Athletic Bilbao vs. BATE Borisov when both teams know their fate, and then you have fixtures like Roma vs. Manchester City and Liverpool vs. Basel, which are effectively playoffs to qualify for the last 16. Some odds for this round of matches are distorted by the fact that the game will mean more to one team than another, and this leads to some fascinating betting dilemmas.

Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are still level at the top of the betting at 3/1, with Barcelona and Chelsea both at 11/2 odds. Paris Saint-Germain (16/1), Atletico Madrid (18/1) and Borussia Dortmund (20/1) are next, while the 25/1 available on Manchester City will come crashing down to about 10/1 if they beat Roma on Wednesday.

Let's handicap MatchDay 6 of the Champions League.

Odds provided by Sportsbook.ag

The Banker: Liverpool vs. Basel - Draw or Basel to win at 11/10

The 3/4 available on Liverpool here has very little to do with the quality of Liverpool and Basel. Rather, it is based on the fact that punters (including Liverpool’s vast legion of generally optimistic supporters) will pile into the bigger club on home turf. The cliché of the ‘famous European night at Anfield’, similar to those experienced when the Reds won the competition in 2004/05, will sway many bettors towards Brendan Rodgers’s men.

However those days are long behind us, and Liverpool have done little to suggest this season that they can win a tough and important game such as this. Basel know that a draw would see them through, and with their considerable firepower combined with Liverpool’s poor defence will give good cause for optimism. Basel beat Liverpool 1-0 in the return fixture in September, and the margin of victory should have been greater. Basel lead the Swiss league by eight points, and are a side used to winning. They have won their last five, most recently sweeping aside Luzern 3-0 away from home. Liverpool, meanwhile, played out a tepid 0-0 draw with Sunderland at Anfield.

The Solid Bet: Chelsea to beat Sporting Lisbon at 8/11

On the face of it, this seems a ludicrously good price. Chelsea tend to just win at home, and their squad is far better than Sporting Lisbon’s. However the mitigating factor is that this is a dead game to Chelsea. Sporting, on the other hand, are two points clear of Schalke in third and know that they will qualify with a win (and almost certainly a draw).

Chelsea are likely to make as many changes as possible, but the players coming in are hardly a step down from the first XI. Petr Cech will play in goal. Filipe Luis, the best left-back in Spain last season, will come in at left-back, while Kurt Zouma - seen by many as one of the best young centre-backs in the world - will come in. Otherwise, internationals such as Ramires, Andre Schürrle, Loïc Rémy and Mo Salah are all likely to make starts, along with two or three of Chelsea’s promising youngsters. There is also a strong possibility that Sporting will qualify if they lose. Their rivals for second place, Schalke 04, face a testing trip to Maribor, and this will play on the Sporting players’ minds.

The Outsider: Maribor to beat Schalke 04 at 10/3

Schalke need to win in Slovenia and hope that Chelsea do a job for them at beat Sporting Lisbon. However, Roberto Di Matteo’s side have been poor in this year’s Champions League and are no sort of value at 4/5. Maribor have drawn their two group home games so far, including against a strong Chelsea side, and it is the Vijolice who could grab the win and grab the Europa League spot in the group, and relegating Schalke to bottom spot in the process.

Both teams come into the game in good form, particularly in front of goal. Maribor sit second in the Slovenian league (which they will probably win after the distraction of European football has gone) and have scored 14 in their last four games, while Schalke put in their best performance of the season in a 4-0 win at Stuttgart. However, the men from Gelsenkirchen tend to wilt on the big stage, and this was particularly apparent in their 5-0 home drubbing at the hands of Chelsea. If they fail to make an early breakthrough at the Ljudski vrt, then another nightmarish European night could be in store.

The First Goalscorer: Mario Mandzukic for Atletico Madrid at Juventus at 11/2

This match will almost certainly be meaningless - Juventus would need to win by five goals to overtake Atletico and win the group, while they would need an eight goal swing with Olympiakos to fail to qualify. So in the end, the question is - who is the stronger team? At 6/5 Juventus cannot be backed, and I would be much more attracted by the 29/10 available on last season’s runners-up Atletico. Juventus have not been able to replicate their league form over the last few years against the best in Europe, and with three wins in a row in La Liga, Atletico can continue that trend.

Mario Mandzukic looks a good bet to break the deadlock for Atletico at 11/2. He scored in Atleti’s 2-0 win at Elche at the weekend, and his record in the Champions League is enviable. The Croatian scored a hat-trick as his side beat Malmo 4-0 on Matchday 5.