Champions League Betting – Sevilla Meet Juve
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:39 am ESTPublished:
Sevilla (+552) at Juventus (-185), Draw (+309)
The first game of the UCL Group stage for Juventus and Sevilla goes today at Juventus Stadium in Turin (2:45 PM Eastern).
The two reside in a mediocre Group H alongside Lyon and Dinamo Zagreb.
Both squads are off to good starts domestically. Sevilla is currently in second place in the Spanish La Liga with seven points of nine disputed, scoring eight goals while conceding just five. They are one of six unbeaten teams in La Liga.
Juventus, meanwhile, are back atop Serie A, where they’ve finished for five straight years.
Sevilla will be looking to better their performance from last season in the Champions League; they finished third in their group and were relegated to the Europa League. They ended up winning the Europa League for the third time in a row, but they want something bigger and better this year.
Sevilla and Juve also shared a group last season, and each side was able to win at home in the round robin portion of the tournament. It was Sevilla’s struggles away from home that kept them out of the knockout stage; they lost all three away matches last time.
While they have been a juggernaut – offensively – at home this season, beating Espanyol 6-4 and Los Palmas 2-1, they were shutout by Villarreal (0-0) in their last away game.
Juve, as usual, have been very good at home early in the year. They dominated Sassuolo (3-1) and edged a talented Fiorentina side (2-1). They also blanked Lazio (1-0 away) to run their record to a perfect 3-0 in Serie A so far.
They haven’t lost a home game in a European tournament in the last 17 tries.
The Italians were eliminated in the Round of 16 by Bayern Munich last year and haven’t won the UCL since 1996.
If these teams were meeting on a neutral site, Juve would have the slight edge. Playing at home, they’re massive favorites, both thanks to their dominance at home and Sevilla’s struggles on the road. Take the Italians.
Pick: Juventus (-185).
Photo credit: Football.ua CC BY-SA 3.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0] via Wikimedia Commons.
Sports Writer
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
