Halloween night could be a scary proposition for a lot of teams in the Champions League. Teams at the top of the table are going to be playing on Tuesday, and there are plenty of clubs who can lock up their spots in the Round of 16 of the UCL. That said, a lot of teams could fall from their ranks and put their biggest competition of the season in peril if things start to turn sideways.
These Champions League duels will go down Tuesday, October 31, with all of the kickoffs taking place at 3:45 p.m. ET. The Manchester United/Benfica match will be televised live on FOX Sports 1, while the Roma/Chelsea affair can be seen on FOX Sports 2.
Champions League Opening Odds at BookMaker.eu
AS Roma ( +160 ) vs. Chelsea
Manchester United ( -300 ) vs. Benfica
FC Basel ( -125 ) vs. CSKA Moscow
Atletico Madrid ( -1100 ) vs. Qarabag
Sporting Lisbon ( +280 ) vs. Juventus
Olympiakos ( +1200 ) vs. Barcelona
PSG ( -1600 ) vs. Anderlecht
Celtic ( +800 ) vs. Bayern Munich
For the most part, the groups at the top of the table in the Champions League have gone according to form. The teams that are supposed to get through this group are doing so, and there shouldn't be much in the way of surprises at this point.
The only disappointment in Group A is that Benfica has yet to snag a single point in three matches. The Portuguese side has had a rough season, something that is rearing its ugly head in the UCL. Benfica has just one goal in three fixtures, including a 1-0 loss at home against Man U.
The Red Devils are 3-0-0 with an 8-1 goal differential in three Champions League matches, and they haven't blinked yet. Three points will secure a spot in the knockout round, though a draw could do the job as well if CSKA Moscow is beaten at FC Basel as is expected to be the case.
Basel can't technically lock up a spot in the next round, but a win would effectively get the job done. CSKA needs at least a draw to avoid being effectively eliminated from the UCL.
Group B has turned into a runaway, and we have no doubt that PSG and Bayern Munich are headed to the knockout rounds. Celtic and Anderlecht never had a chance in this group, and the fact that they were beaten 9-0 combined by PSG earlier in the group stage.
Now, Bayern travels to Scotland to try to effectively eliminate Celtic while PSG plays host to Anderlecht. If the chalk holds, Bayern Munich won't technically be clinched yet, but with a different between the two that is already at eight goals for the Reds plus more to come, it's hard to see how the Scottish champs can overturn that.
Qarabag was never supposed to get a single point from Group C, a group that was largely the toughest to handicap of the three. Atletico Madrid, AS Roma and Chelsea were all supposed to be tough competition, and trying to figure out which one of the three was going to drop into Europa League was always going to be hard.
But the Azerbaijani squad picked up the first point in its nation's history in the UCL when it picked up a tremendous draw against the Atleti at home two weeks ago. Now, the two teams will meet again back in Spain in a match Madrid has to win to have any chance of keeping up with Chelsea and Roma.
As far as the other two are concerned, they played to a 3-3 draw in one of the better matches of this competition to date. Now, they meet again on Italian soil in a match which a draw would be a huge benefit to both sides with Atleti trailing behind.
Barcelona and Juventus have taken care of business to this point in Group D, and the only thing that stands between these two and a trip to the knockout round of the competition is putting Sporting Lisbon away.
Assuming that Barcelona takes care of business in Greece against Olympiakos, a Juventus victory at Sporting Lisbon would effectively secure advancement for the two juggernauts of the group.
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