The top half of the Champions League table through two match days is quite interesting. Teams like Juventus and Atletico Madrid would actually be out of the competition and dropped into the Europa League if the groups were finished today. That alone should put the pressure on both teams to start to perform as we hit the halfway point of the group stage on Wednesday night.
These Champions League duels will go down Wednesday, October 18, with all of the kickoffs taking place at 2:45 p.m. ET. The Chelsea/Roma match will be televised live on FOX Sports 1, while the Barcelona/Olympiacos affair can be seen on FOX Sports 2.
Champions League Opening Odds at BookMaker.eu
Qarabag ( +1150 ) vs. Atletico Madrid
Juventus ( -344 ) vs. Sporting Lisbon
Barcelona ( -1428 ) vs. Olympiacos
Chelsea ( -149 ) vs. AS Roma
Bayern Munich ( -909 ) vs. Celtic
Benfica ( +315 ) vs. Manchester United
Anderlecht ( +1450 ) vs. PSG
CSKA Moscow ( -105 ) vs. FC Basel
Of the eight matches that are set to be played on Wednesday night, just three of the five feature anywhere near reasonable betting lines where upsets are at least plausible. Two of those matches feature teams from the English Premier League.
Chelsea was surely always going to be favored at home over AS Roma. That said, the fact that the Blues have blown through their first two UCL matches of the year with ease tells us a lot. Chelsea is sitting on six points in Group C, and a win over Roma would put in five clear of both the Italian side and Atletico Madrid with three matches left to play. Qualification won't quite be in the bag yet, but with a match left to play against Qarabag the week of Thanksgiving, let's just say that it would be virtually impossible for the Blues not to qualify.
The only concern that Antonio Conte should have is that these Italian teams have typically fared well, even on English soil. A point wouldn't be the end of the world for Chelsea, knowing that seven points in three fixtures is as solid as it gets. But that win would take all the pressure off the rest of the way at Stamford Bridge until January.
The other real tight match on Wednesday night pits Manchester United against Benfica. The Portuguese side is +315 on the moneyline at home in a fixture that it really does need to win to stay alive in the Champions League. With Basel and CSKA Moscow playing against each other in Group A in a match running concurrently, the second-place team in this group is either going to be on six points or four points at the end of the night. Benfica can't go into the second round of the group stage without at least three points to stay close.
Meanwhile, a win for Man U will leave it either five or six points clear of safety with three fixtures left to play, a spot that would almost surely put it into the knockout rounds.
Group B should sort itself out fairly definitively on Wednesday night. Bayern Munich hosts Celtic with a chance to put three points between these two teams, while PSG shouldn't have any problems against an Anderlecht team that has been outscored 6-0 in two matches thus far in this group. If the chalk holds, there's almost no way that either PSG or Bayern don't qualify for the knockout rounds.
Juve is the team with the most pressure on its shoulders on Wednesday. The Old Lady will almost certainly be just fine when it comes to qualifying. The team was beaten 3-0 at Barcelona; no big deal. That said, slips against Olympiacos and Sporting Lisbon can't happen. Juventus did its job at home against Olympiacos earlier this year, and if it can hold serve at home against Sporting on Wednesday, Turin will rest assured that its team will be fine in Group D. Anything less, though, and Juventus will head into the return leg in Lisbon on October 31 with a slew of pressure on its shoulders.
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