Bayer Leverkusen VS Atletico Madrid

Leverkusen welcome visitors from the capital of Spain for this Champions League group stage round 2 clash at BayArena in Leverkusen. This will certainly not be the most high-level or entertaining match in this competition today but it is still the only match I want to recommend a pick on. The sharpest bookies with the biggest betting limits see this as more or less as a coin toss (50-50%) at the time of writing this analysis but I do see the German hosts as the favorites. Home advantage is massive in UEFA’s club competitions, and this is a factor that is surprisingly often not given emphasis to on the betting market. Leverkusen have very loud and loyal fans to cheer for them and I expect the atmosphere at BayArena to be amazing! I suspect Atletico’s fine run in this competition also affects the odds here. They did have quite a lot of luck though and could easily have dropped out a lot sooner than they actually did – against Manchester City. By raw class the visitors are better, but the margin is definitely not big. Leverkusen have a young team that is improving all the time and I am not too worried by the pretty disappointing results they have achieved lately as they would have deserved (more) points in several matches. I do admit they would have to defend better but they are used to an aggressive, offensive – and risky style of playing football.

In the opening round they were okay away from home against Club Brugge from Belgium and would have deserved a draw after a balanced match where both teams recorded three shots on target but the Germans had more ball possession and four more goal attempts. In their most recent match, they were slightly disappointing away from home against Hertha Berlin and it was a 2-2 draw after a balanced clash. Perhaps their minds were already in this very important game.. Atletico, on the other hand, beat Celta Vigo 4-1 at home in their most recent match but the final score is very misleading as the huge underdogs Celta had more ball possession, passes, completed passes, attacks and dangerous attacks. Against Porto it was a very tight battle and Tico had major problems with their offense. A draw would have been a justified result.