Get ready for a mouth-watering Champions League quarter-final clash between Barcelona and Bayern Munich. These two European footballing titans will be fighting for a semi-final appearance against either Manchester City or Lyon, and we’ve got some solid betting tips for this clash.
Can Barcelona overcome their lacklustre recent form and pick up their first silverware of the season? Or will Robert Lewandowski once again fire Bayern Munich to glory? Find out with our predictions.
Barcelona have suffered from a very topsy turvy season. While Lionel Messi once again became the top goalscorer in La Liga football, all has not been well at Nou Camp. New head coach Quique Setien has tried to settle the ship since the sacking of Ernesto Valverde in January, but Barcelona had to suffer the sight of Real Madrid claiming the La Liga title.
So what’s behind this bizarre loss of form? Recent signings such as Antoine Griezmann and Frenkie De Jong have failed to live up to the hype. Plus Barcelona seem to be playing a very disjointed kind of football since the restart.
The Catalan side scraped through their round of 16 clash with a fairly unconvincing 4-2 aggregate win over Napoli. But will Bayern be quite so forgiving?
After a turbulent couple of seasons, Bayern Munich are definitely back to their best. While all eyes might be on the team’s outstanding goalscorer, Robert Lewandowski, it’s clear that head coach Hans-Dieter Flick has managed to get the German team to gel well.
Not only have Bayern Munich raced to their eighth successive Bundesliga title, but they have been in outstanding form in the 2019/20 Champions League.
Not content with putting seven away goals past Tottenham, Bayern went on to thump Chelsea with an aggregate 7-1 win in the round of 16. All of which has meant that the bookmakers have Bayern as the favourites to win their first Champions League title since 2013.
You may think that Barcelona would have the upper hand in this encounter, but Bayern Munich have actually beaten the Spanish team six times in their 10 competitive matches. This is compared to Barcelona’s two wins, and there have been two draws.
The one major fact that you should be aware of is that whenever these two teams have met in a knock-out round of the Champions League, the winner has gone on to win the overall tournament.
The last time that these two footballing powerhouses met was in 2015. This saw Pep Guardiola’s Bayern winning 3-2 in the second leg of the Champions League semi-finals with goals from the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Medhi Benatia and Thomas Muller.
However, this wasn’t enough to overcome the 3-0 deficit of the first leg that came about thanks to two goals from Lionel Messi and one from Neymar. Barcelona went on to beat Juventus 3-1 in the final.
Such a result would have evened things up ever since Bayern thrashed Barcelona with a 7-0 aggregate win in the semi-finals of the 2013 Champions League.
Interestingly, this encounter always seems to produce plenty of goals. There has never been a goalless match between Barcelona and Bayern Munich, and you have to go all the way back to the 1998/99 Champions League to find a game that featured just one goal. All of which means that we could be looking forward to yet another goalscoring bonanza on Friday night.
Messi versus Lewandowski
Not only does this match give us chance to see two of the world’s biggest football clubs, but you’ll get to witness two of the best strikers. Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski are both in excellent goalscoring form, and they’ll be providing plenty of goalmouth entertainment on Friday.
Messi picked up 25 goals in La Liga football in the 2019/20 season. But Lewandowski has had an incredible year having scored a remarkable 53 goals in all competitions.
The five most recent results
Barcelona vs. Bayern Munich
12 May 2015
Barcelona away, 2-3
06 May 2015
Barcelona home, 3-0
01 May 2013
Barcelona home, 0-3
23 April 2013
Barcelona away, 4-0
27 July 2011
Barcelona away, 0-2
Our betting tip for today
Given recent form, it’s understandable that most bookmakers have Bayern Munich down as being the favourites to win this match. But seeing as the best odds we could find for a Bayern win were 2.00, we thought that we’d see if there was any value in other betting markets.
So this is why we’ve gone for Robert Lewandowski to be the first goalscorer. After all, the striker is in great form and Barcelona’s defence is looking fairly leaky at the moment. Unibet is currently offering odds of 4.25 for Lewandowski to get his name on the scoresheet first. Just so you know, the bookmaker has odds of 6.00 for Messi to get the first goal.
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