Champions League Betting – Bayer Leverkusen at AS Roma

Bayer Leverkusen (+260) at AS Roma (+110), Draw (+270)

After three fixtures, AS Roma remain winless in the 2015-16 Champions League (0-2-1). The Italians still have a shot at advancing to the Round of 16 but need to start racking up the points, starting tomorrow when they host Bayer Leverkusen at the Stadio Olimpico (2:45 PM Eastern).

Roma earned a draw versus Barcelona (1-1) in their first fixture and, most recently, tied Leverkusen in Germany in a thrilling 4-4 affair, picking up a decent two points from two of the toughest matches on their UCL schedule. But those draws bookended a surprising 3-2 loss at BATE Borisov, the predicted last-place team in Group E.

Now, with just two points through three matches, Roma sit last in the quartet. (Barcelona lead the group with seven points, followed by Bayer Leverkusen with four, and BATE with three.)

While getting a point in Germany looks like a decent result on paper, the team feels like it should have come away with more. Roma fell behind 2-0 early, then roared back with four straight goals to take the lead. But two late tallies from Leverkusen sent the Italians home with one point instead of three.

Roma’s most recent Serie A outing also came wreathed in disappointment as they lost 1-0 to Inter Milan and surrendered top spot in the table in the process.

“Of course, we’re all frustrated, and we have to use that frustration on Wednesday,” Roma manager Rudi Garcia told Premium Sport. “It will be an important match, the lads know it, and we’ve been working to prepare based on the first leg. We did a lot of good things, we did a lot of good things over 70 minutes, we showed we could hurt them, but they scored four goals too.”

Bayer Leverkusen are coming off a 2-1 Bundesliga loss to Wolfsburg, which dropped them to the seventh in the standings, already an insurmountable 14 points behind league-leading Bayern Munich. They are 1-1-1 in UCL action this year, beating BATE Borisov (4-1 home) and losing to Barcelona (2-1 away) in addition to the 4-4 draw with Roma.

Leverkusen have only won once in eight previous visits to Italy, drawing three and losing four, while Roma are 7-1-4 at home against German clubs. That trend favors the Italians, obviously, but given Roma’s recent struggles and the ostensible parity these sides showed in their last meeting, the draw looks to be offering decent value.

Pick: Draw (+270).

(Photo credit: Ver en vivo En Directo (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/]. Photo has been cropped.)