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Juventus Torino will host FC Barcelona in the first leg of what is set to be a highly interesting UEFA Champions League quarterfinal tie.
Juve had a terrific season and an equally awesome 2017, with the hosts losing a single game since 15 January – and that was a 2-3 defeat at Napoli last week, but a defeat which still qualified them for the Coppa Italia finals. Juventus made light work of Porto in the previous UCL Round (2-0, 1-0) and will definitely feel confident coming into this clash with FC Barcelona.
The visitors are on the back of an ugly 0-2 loss at Malaga in a match which could have seen them tie Real Madrid at the top of the La Liga table. What`s more, Barcelona did not rest too many guys in that weekend match and the MSN trio was on the court, making the loss that much worse. Barcelona won 8 of their last 10 matches in all competitions and generally looked great, but they did have small hiccups here and there in the last few months including the 0-4 loss at PSG in the last UCL round, with Barca having to win the reverse leg 6-1 at home to qualify.
Bet on Juventus vs. Barcelona and get your 100% (100 Eur) bonus at Ohmbet now!Team news & lineups:
Pjaca is the only absentee for Juventus, while Barcelona will have to deal with the suspension of Busquets. Vidal and Rafinha are also out, while Arda Turan is a doubt.
Juventus: Buffon – Alves, Bonucci, Chiellini, Sandro – Khedira – Cuadrado, Pjanic, Mandzukic, Dybala – Higuain
Barcelona: Ter Stegen – Roberto, Umtiti, Pique, Alba – Rakitic, Gomes, Iniesta – Suarez, Messi, Neymar
Juventus is well known for being a beast at home and they were absolutely marvelous this season, winning all 16 home games in Serie A and being undefeated in all competitions at Juventus Stadium. They won all their 11 matches at this venue in 2017.
However, in the Champions League they were not quite the same. In their 4 UCL home matches they drew with Sevilla and Lyon, while claiming narrow, unimpressive victories against Dinamo Zagreb and Porto.
For all of Juventus’ success, truth is that Serie A isn`t quite the best barometer for their level, as it is a worse competition than, for example, the Spanish La Liga. It`s no fluke that Juve hasn`t really come close to winning the Champions League in recent years despite always dominating in Italy, and this season they were again less impressive on the European stage than they were domestically.
Barcelona will be put on guard here after what happened last round against PSG, when they lost the first leg 4-0 in France and put themselves in an almost impossible position, having to pull off a miracle at home in order to advance. Barca should have learned from that loss in Paris and you would expect them to be extra focused and careful this time around.
All being said, Barcelona is the better team here and I believe they will take every precaution to avoid a loss, having the experience of the tie with PSG fresh in mind, not to mention the weekend loss in Malaga.
Despite a few hiccups when playing on the road, overall Barcelona has been impressive in the last couple of months. I can see them bringing their A game on the biggest stage yet again, forcing Juventus to fall just short at this level for another year.
My tip is Barcelona to cover the +0,5 handicap, but I will keep the stakes reasonable on the bet. Odds might not be highest, but I definitely think they are better than they should be. Prediction: Juventus – Barcelona 1-1.
Pick: Barcelona +0,5
Odds: 1.57 @ SlBet
Stake: 7
Possible profit: 3.99
Event date: 11 April
I agree with the bet Rostic. It is irrelevant but just to correct you Psg beat Barca 4:0 first leg and lost 6:1 rematch. 😉
Thx for the correction. Honestly it was not a mistype, that`s how I remembered it. Fixed now 🙂
@Alen
I don’t really understand what your correction is about, because Rostick put all the scores in the Paris vs Barcelona match correctly!
@Philip I edited the text after his correction. I initially wrote 0-3 and 5-1.
I have to disagree with this. To me Juve is an excellent team with a good progression. Two seasons ago they reached the CL final and last year they were eliminated in Munich after choking a 2-0 lead with less than 20 minutes remaining. I think they can win CL this year. Juve have just lost one home match in the last 2 years so it’s fair to say they are strong at home. While Barca this season havent played well, some shocking losses away from home this year (psg, depor, malaga) Also busquets will miss the match and that should be a big problem for luis enrique. I think it will be difficult for barca to win this match and if i had to choose id give the edge to the italian team. Even in the tie, to me juventus are marginally favourites to qualify so odds of 2.5 seems good value to me
still good luck and lets enjoy a great football match
Nice input mate. It`s hard to disagree with anything you said, because you are stating legit facts – I guess we just interpret them in slightly different ways. Juventus can stay undefeated 100 more matches for all I care, the draw works fine for me here 🙂 Good luck!
Papo, your analysis was spot on. I guess I completely misjudged the situation. At least I didn`t push too much with the stakes.
Oh man….I think even the biggest Juve fans didn’t expect this to happen! This was embarrassing. Now we can all agree that there is no hiccups from Barca loses, Barca simply isn’t the same. They are being destroyed from almost any good team in premier league or UCL away from home…home they still are good. I really misjudged them, this time.
Primera, not premier league.