Real Madrid vs Liverpool and more: betPawa BIG match insights
This season’s Champions League round of 16 is at the business end with 4 more fascinating second-leg clashes. Will Napoli do Diego Maradona justice at their stadium named in his honour? Can lightning strike twice in a second-leg knockout match involving Jürgen Klopp’s never-say-die Liverpool? Here are those and all of the other BIG match insights you’ll need.
Tuesday 14th March
Prepare for a battle
The first leg always appeared likely to be a tight tussle, and so it proved. An 86th-minute Romelu Lukaku strike at San Siro gives the Nerazzurri a slender 1-0 aggregate lead ahead of their visit to Porto’s iconic and intimidating Estádio do Dragão.
On the domestic front, Porto are trying to catch Primeira Liga leaders Benfica, a cause not helped by a home defeat to Gil Vicente 4 days after the loss in Milan. They had 2 men sent off in that game. They also had attacking midfielder Otávio sent off at San Siro, so he’ll play no part in the second leg. Incredibly, Porto’s 3 games prior to Friday night’s meeting with Estoril Praia produced a total of 5 red cards.
Sérgio Conceição’s men will need to manage their tempers to stay in this tie. Make no mistake, though, they are still very much in it, with Inter’s away record in 2023 unremarkable.
Will this year be different for City in Europe?
Pep Guardiola’s body of work at Manchester City is impressive, to put it mildly, but he won’t rest until he’s won the Champions League with them. He hasn’t lifted the trophy since his second triumph with Barcelona in 2011, and came agonisingly close in the 2021 final against Chelsea. His side last failed to reach the quarter-finals in 2016/17, when they were dumped out in the round of 16 by Monaco, a team inspired by a then-teenaged Kylian Mbappé.
RB Leipzig will be desperate for Christopher Nkunku to make the squad but he’s a BIG doubt after a fresh injury concern against Dortmund in the league earlier this month. If he doesn’t pass a fitness test, City will still need to be wary of Leipzig’s in-form danger men Emil Forsberg and Timo Werner. Hungarian playmaker Dominik Szoboszlai is also a threat.
Joško Gvardiol, scorer of Leipzig’s goal in the first leg to cancel out Riyad Mahrez’s opener, is a young left-footed central defender coveted by virtually every BIG club on the planet. That long list of admirers reportedly includes Manchester City. Algerian star Mahrez now has 20 goals in the Champions League. He’s just the fifth African player to hit 20+ in the competition.
Gvardiol will get up close and personal with the one and only Erling Haaland at the Etihad Stadium. The Norwegian’s rare blank in the first leg still leaves his Champions League career tally at a ridiculous 28 goals in 24 appearances. Their direct duels will be fascinating to watch.
Wednesday 15th March
Suspension makes tough task harder for visitors
Napoli’s Scudetto push is going strong despite a first home defeat of the season against Lazio earlier this month. Nigerian striker Victor Osimhen, the man of the moment, just can’t stop scoring for the Serie A leaders. He reached 19 league goals by the end of February to charge clear in the Capocannoniere (top scorer) race, and was deservedly named Serie A Player of the Month. He also struck his second Champions League goal of the season in the first leg.
Eintracht shipped 4 goals in 2 matches in the immediate aftermath of their 2-0 home defeat to Napoli. Clean sheets remain a problem for Oliver Glasner’s team, with none achieved in their last 9 away matches.
Another massive issue they’ll have to get around is the suspension of Frenchman Randal Kolo Muani, who was sent off in the first leg at Deutsche Bank Park. 24-year-old Muani has been a menace in the final third since signing from Nantes, hitting double figures for both goals and assists in the Bundesliga. How will they possibly replace him?
If Luciano Spalletti’s men keep their nerve, they can start planning to go deep into this competition. Their football has been a breath of fresh air in 2022/23 and who knows where the adventure will take them next?
Man Utd demolition job will have Reds believing
Real Madrid’s form and goalscoring dropped off dramatically after their amazing 5-2 win at Anfield over Liverpool, scoring a single goal in the 3 games that followed. A 1-1 draw with Atlético Madrid and a 0-0 stalemate against Real Betis pushed them further behind LaLiga leaders Barcelona, even with the table-toppers losing 1-0 to Almeria in that period. Carlo Ancelotti’s side also lost 1-0 to Barça in the first leg of their Copa del Rey semi-final.
However, Los Blancos are specialists in this competition. Although the team didn’t end up missing them too much at Anfield, Ancelotti will be delighted to have both Aurélien Tchouaméni and Toni Kroos (who was only able to make a late cameo last month) fit again in the centre of the park.
The Reds can’t overturn another BIG first-leg deficit, can they? The odds are stacked against them this time as they’ll have to do it at the Bernabéu, not Anfield. Still, memories of the 7-0 thumping they handed to Man Utd will be fresh. Los Blancos best beware.
Mo Salah’s brace against Man Utd made him Liverpool’s all-time leading Premier League scorer. In the Champions League, Salah has 41 goals for Liverpool, 2 for Basel and 1 for Roma. He is the joint-most prolific African goalscorer in the competition’s history, alongside Didier Drogba.
Real Madrid icon Karim Benzema has scored 88 career Champions League goals, exactly double Salah’s career tally. It might boil down to one of these men taking this game by the scruff of the neck. Ballon d’Or holder Benzema bagged 44 goals in 46 Real Madrid appearances last season. This campaign, he was on 18 in 27 matches before the weekend. It’s still a superb ratio, but injuries have affected the Frenchman this season and reaching 2021/22’s lofty standards was always going to be a tall order.
You can never say never in football, but this would truly be one of the most remarkable comebacks in sporting history if Liverpool were to manage it. Real Madrid themselves are famous for their ability to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, as they proved more than once on their way to the trophy in 2022. Let’s also not forget that they trailed 2-0 at Anfield before rattling in 5 unanswered goals between the 21st and 67th minutes.
Will there be a role reversal here?
Enjoy what should be another blockbuster midweek of elite knockout football.