Champions League Final Betting Tips: Defensive stats point to the Italians ahead of Cardiff clash

May 30 2017
May 30 2017
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Another mouth-watering Champions League final is nearly upon us and this time it is two recent domestic title winners in Juventus and Real Madrid who’ll be going head-to-head at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff for the right to get their hands on club football’s most coveted prize.

By deploying contrasting tactics, these two giants of the European game have overcome all challengers, but who will put in the better jump at the last and get over the line in front on Saturday evening?

Below is a basic statistical breakdown of each team’s performance in the competition so far:

juventus-v-real-madrid-stats

As we can see from the above graphic, both Real Madrid and Juventus have been fairly impressive on route to the final; however, the pair have done it in differing fashion. First of all you’ve got Zinedine Zidane’s Real who’ll be appearing in Cardiff thanks to both their goals scored and the manner in which they’ve overpowered teams in terms of star quality. In contrast, Massimiliano Allegri Juventus are a typically well-oiled Italian machine, one that is as ruthless as it is efficient. Serie A’s champions have put their rock solid foundations to good use throughout the competition before making teams pay the price at the other end.

As a consequence of their contrasting playing styles, it is goals that tear these two apart. The game is about goals and the pair seemingly take a very different approach when it comes to football’s most important commodity. As the graphic above shows, Juventus have conceded just three goals throughout the duration of this competition. Such a total is impressive and is undoubtedly the reason as to why they’re still unbeaten ahead of the final match. What’s more, the treble-seeking Italian club has never really looked like losing at any point, whereas Madrid, well, they’ve certainly not been the most convincing, put it that way. The Spanish champions may well have lost just once in the Champions League this season, but that single blot isn’t a result of good defending. Frankly, a total of 17 goals conceded isn’t quite what you’d expect from a team bidding to win this competition for a third time in four seasons, and they can perhaps count themselves lucky to have made it this far given how poorly they’ve defended throughout.

Reversely, Juve aren’t able to boast the same scoring stats as Real and you could quite easily argue that the Spaniards needn’t worry too much about defending because they’re so good in the final third. After all, they’re the competitions’ highest scorers with no less than 32 goals. However, attacking quality can only take you so far – as far as the final in this case – and a dodgy back-line much means that they’re there to be shot at.

From a betting point of view, it does of course depend on whether you favour attacking power or defensive solidity when it comes to predicting the winner of a massive game like this, but it’s hard to say that defensive solidity doesn’t inspire more confidence from a punting point of view, especially if that defensively astute side happens to be fairly useful in the final third as well. Given the fact that they’re unbeaten in this competition so far, it’s a bit surprising that Juventus are considered outsiders, albeit not massively, at 2/1. 2/1 about a team who’ve conceded just three goals and won 83% of their knockout matches does seem on the large side.

It’s hard to pick holes in any of Juventus’ performances in the latter rounds of the Champions League this season; they’ve been virtually impossible to breach at the back and have scored important goals when it matters most. It will undoubtedly take a massive effort for the Real front-line to find a way through, whereas it’s very easy to envisage the Italian outfit causing problems for a Madrid back-line that has conceded against every opponent it’s faced in the competition so far. All in all, 2/1 is a price well worth snapping up.

Another bet that stands out, is ‘Real Madrid to Score Under 0.5 Goals‘. Although Real Madrid have scored in each of their 12 matches on route to the final, their toughest task is yet to come. Moreover, conceding goals hasn’t really been part of Juventus’ game this season, especially in Europe. Allegri’s men have allowed their opponents to score in just 25% of their UCL fixtures and even though Madrid fans expect their team to score against anyone, breaching the Juventus rearguard might just prove too difficult. Since things got serious in the knockout rounds, the Old Lady have conceded just a single goal and have kept five clean sheets in six matches, including both home and away against the might of Barcelona. Such experiences should hold the Italian side in good stead and the likes of Juve stalwarts Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci will be unfazed by facing a barrage of attacks from the Champions League top-scorers. In fact, they’ll thrive off it.

Going against Madrid to score just the one goal, with all their attacking talent, is something of a risk, one that plenty of punters will certainly feel isn’t worth taking, but 9/4 simply looks too big. At this moment in time, there’s no team better at nullifying an opposition threat than Juventus and it is indeed this strength at the back that can allow Juventus to secure a third trophy of the campaign.

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