Champions League Betting – Real Madrid at Juventus

Real Madrid (+160) at Juventus (+200) (Draw +225)

Tomorrow, Juventus look to take the first step to upsetting the reigning UEFA Champions League title holders from Real Madrid, as they host Cristiano Ronaldo and company at Juventus Stadium in the first leg of their two-game semi-final series (2:45 PM Eastern Time).

Juve was crowned Serie A champions on the weekend for the fourth year in a row; but that result was a foregone conclusion weeks ago, as the squad holds a massive, 15-point lead over its closest domestic rival. For Juventus, this year is about success in Europe, where things have not gone as well in recent times.

In fact, the last time Juventus made it to a Champions League final was back in 2003 – arguably the heyday of Italian soccer – when they lost to fellow Serie A squad AC Milan. (Coincidentally, Juve ousted Real Madrid that year.) The team’s last title came all the way back in 1996 over Dutch side Ajax.

Juventus manager Max Allegri realizes that ending the drought will take a monumental effort from this team.

“When you play in a Champions League semifinal, your mind is never completely clear,” warned Allegri. “You play with the awareness of your own strengths, the objective of reaching the final and knowing you are among the top four in Europe. … [But Real] are an extraordinary squad with so much technique and pace. We’ll need a great performance, two of them actually.”

Real Madrid are coming off a hard-fought 3-2 win away over Sevilla with Ronaldo providing all of the scoring.

“The win will give us confidence for Tuesday’s game”, said manager Carlo Ancelotti.

The win was the seventh in a row in La Liga for Real and kept the team just two back of Barcelona at the top the table. But Ancelotti isn’t concerned with calculating points at this stage, only playing the best soccer possible on both fronts (domestically and in Europe). “[I]t doesn’t make any sense to talk about the points that are left to win the league, we just have to win our games and wait to see what happens, but now the focus is on Juventus,” said the manager.

On the injury front, there is good news and bad for Ancelotti. The bad is that facilitating midfielder Luka Modric is sidelined for tomorrow’s game; the good is that striker Karim Benzema is back in action.

“[Benzema] had a run-out today and did a good job with no problems,” Ancelotti said about the French star.

Historically speaking, this is the 11th time Juventus has reached the semi-final stage. Juve have advanced to the final in seven of their previous ten semi-finals. Real Madrid, meanwhile, has advanced to the final 13 of the 25 times they’ve reached the semis.

For Real Madrid, beating Juventus in Italy will be quite the challenge as the Bianconeri have won 45 of their last 54 games at home while drawing eight and losing just once (all competitions). The loss came against Fiorentina in the Coppa Italia semifinals (which Juve rebounded from with an away win over their domestic rival).

With that in mind, consider the draw for tomorrow’s game.

Pick: Draw +225.

(Photo credit: El Coleccionista de Instant (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode]. Photo may appear cropped.)