Real Madrid and Liverpool will renew their European rivalry this Wednesday when both sides meet at the Santiago Bernabeu in the second leg of their Champions League knock-out tie.
Both sides played an entertaining first leg at Anfield, with Real Madrid securing a massive 5-2 win despite falling 2-0 before the first half-hour. That win at Anfield extended Real Madrid’s Los Blancos’ unbeaten run in this fixture–it was their sixth win in seven unbeaten games against the Reds (D1).
So they will come into this fixture with the psychological advantage given their superiority in this fixture and the fact that they face Liverpool at home, where they have won each of their last four UCL games by a combined scoreline of 12-3.
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However, Carlo Ancelotti’s side have performed uncharacteristically since that whopping win at Anfield, with their 3-1 win over Espanyol at the weekend their only win in the four subsequent matches (D2, L1) since the win over the Reds. But, despite that patchy form, history is firmly on their side here as out of the 37 ties in UEFA competition where Real Madrid were victorious in the first leg away from home, they’ve failed to progress to the next stage only twice.
Liverpool are still looking to get their season on track after a series of false dawns. The Reds led Madrid 2-0 in 25 minutes at Anfield and could have been four goals up in that game. Yet they capitulated severely in front of their fans when it mattered the most. A 7-0 win at Anfield followed the loss to Madrid, yet an embarrassing 1-0 loss at the weekend to Bournemouth brought them back to earth.
They will travel to Madrid looking to do what many of their fans will consider impossible–overturning a three-goal deficit at the Santiago Bernabeu. However, if there’s any side that can stage a comeback in the Champions League, it has to be Liverpool, who are one of just four teams to have overturned a UCL first-leg deficit of 3+ goals when they did so against Barcelona at Anfield in 2019.
To succeed here, Jurgen Klopp’s men must emulate a performance similar to their second-leg display in the 2008/09 UCL last 16, where they inflicted what is still Madrid’s heaviest UCL defeat with a 4-0 win.
Meanwhile, both teams have found the net in 16 of Real Madrid’s last 20 home UCL matches. So the best bet here will be a BTTS/GG prediction.
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