Juventus vs Real Madrid Prediction, Preview & Betting Tips

Preview

Joel Amorim May 03, 2015 @ 01:37 pm

Next Tuesday, 5th of May 2015, the current European and World champions, Real Madrid, will travel to Turin to measure forces with the new Italian Serie A holders, Juventus, for the first leg of the Semi-finals stage of the UEFA Champions League.

The defeat against Barcelona late last March helped Real Madrid put an end to a poor series of results that cost them the first place at La Liga’s table. Los Merengues are now a very positive streak of results and have won eight of their nine recent matches. Last Saturday, however, Real Madrid had to dig very deep in order to grant the three points during their visit to Sanchez Pizjuan. A superb hat-trick from the usual suspect, Cristiano, helped them to snatch a narrow 3-2 win and has also helped the player himself overcome the “personal goal” drought that had been clearly upsetting him.

Without Karim Benzema, that remains injured, Real Madrid’s performances have, in a way, left something to be desired. Two weeks ago at Los Balaídos, Los Blancos granted the three points thanks to an unbelievable row of mistakes from the referee, as they experienced enormous difficulties to counter Celta’s attacking game. Last Saturday, Real Madrid also had some trouble in overcoming Sevilla, especially on the dying moments of the match, when the Andalusian team, pumped after Iborra’s goal, pushed Los Blancos against the ropes and forced Casillas to some hard work.

As for Juventus, the Vecchia Signora was, without surprise, coronated Serie A champions for the fourth time in a row, last Saturday during their visit to Luigi Ferraris. A narrow 1-0 win over Sinisa Mihajlovic’s Sampdoria was enough to seal another champions title in a season where Juve had no real contenders on domestic competitions.

For international competitions, however, Juve have kept showing some frailties and their previous Champions League’s round match against AS Monaco is the living proof of that.

Despite playing at home in front of their enthusiastic supporters, we cannot claim that Juventus are firm favourites for next Tuesday’s match, but if we look at Real Madrid’s recent inconsistent performances away from Santiago Bernabeu, we might be forced to think that the first leg of the Semi-finals will probably end up in a draw.

Juventus

Stats: W-3 L-1 D-1

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Real Madrid

Stats: W-5 L-0 D-0

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Possible Line-ups

Juventus (4-3-1-2) - Buffon - Lichtsteiner - Bonucci - Chiellini - Evra - Marchisio - Vidal - Pirlo - Pereyra - Tevez - Morata

Real Madrid (4-4-2) – Casillas - Carvajal - Pepe - Varane - Marcelo - Kroos - Sergio Ramos - Isco - James Rodriguez - Ronaldo - Javier Hernandez

Injury List / Suspended Players

Juventus

Paul Pogba (inj)

Marrone (inj)

Rômulo (inj)

Caceres (inj)

Asamoah (inj)

Real Madrid

Karim Benzema (inj)

Luka Modric (inj)

Head-to-head matches:

Top Players:

Juventus

Carlos Tevez

Andrea Pirlo

Arturo Vidal

Real Madrid

Cristiano Ronaldo

Toni Kroos

James Rodriguez

League Positions