Football Picks – Champions League – Barca visit Leverkusen

Leverkusen – Barcelona
We must go all the way back to November 2009 to find the last Champions League match where Barcelona failed to score, and in their last seven CL matches they have the least netted twice.

I doubt very strongly that Leverkusen has a defence capable of keeping Barca at bay over 90 minutes, so I expect this side of the matter is in the best hands.

The question is then whether Leverkusen will also score? Maybe, maybe not, but I find it too attractive to let it pass when offered more than double up on this outcome.

It is after all not the first time that Leverkusen are in the Champions League, and in their last 8 home games they have scored.

In the group stage they scored two goals in each home match against Belgians Genk, Chelsea and Valencia who all lost in Leverkusen.

Back home in La Liga Barca have only managed one clean sheet in their last 7 away matches, and none in their last 3 away matches in the cup.

Lyon – APOEL Nicosia
Considering how these two clubs settled their group matches in the fall, it is a bit amazing that we still get prices of around 1.80 on the outcome of less than 3 goals in this match.

APOEL has been through the qualifying stages to reach this match, which means they have struggled through six away matches already this season, and they’ve ended up with the following results:
0-2
0-2
1-0
1-1
1-1
0-0

The last three comes from the group stage, where they visited Shakhtar Donetsk, Porto and Zenit St. Petersburg and it is no small feat to go through these unbeaten.

All of this we then compare to Lyon, whose three home matches in the group stage ended 2-0, 0-2 and 0-0. A total of four of their six group matches finished with fewer than 3 goals, just like six of their last 8 home games in this tournament.

Twitter/Jacob Hansen