The most awaited stage during the road to Berlin will begin in Tuesday evening, when the clash on “Juventus Stadium” in Turin will open the Champions League semi-finals, where Italian champion Juventus will host to the defending Champions League winners – Real Madrid, who are chasing their 11th trophy from the most prestigious UEFA club competition.
“The Old Lady” and “Los Blancos” will both come after very successful weekend, in which Juventus have retained their “Scudetto”, when in Saturday evening “I Bianconeri” won with 1:0 over Sampdoria, which marked their final success in Serie A, so now Massimiliano Allegri’s men can only focus on the upcoming two-legged battle against Real Madrid, and for the Coppa Italia, but this will happen in a later period (Coppa Italia final is set for 7th of June).
The visitors from Madrid will travel to Turin after a massive result in Saturday evening as well, when Carlo Ancelotti’s men have ended the unbeaten home form of Sevilla, who were undefeated for more than 13 months, before the 3:2 success for Real Madrid – Cristiano Ronaldo’s hattrick was vital for the first Sevilla’s defeat at their “Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán”, which keeps the difference between Barcelona and Real Madrid from just 2 points, three rounds until the end of Spanish La Liga‘s season, so on practice “Los Blancos” have good chances to win the title, but only if they win all of their remaining efforts, while Barcelona must lose points somewhere. Anyway, we’re pretty sure that at this moment all the focus will be over the upcoming trip to Italy, where Real Madrid will begin one very important week, because in Saturday, “The Whites” will host against another top La Liga side – Valencia, and the game vs “Los Che” can be decisive for the title ambitions, and for the team’s morale before the second leg against the Italian champions.
Juventus and Real Madrid have very solid Champions League rivalry, where both sides have met 16 times and the two-legged semi-final in season 2014-2015 will mark respectively their meetings number 17 and 18. Surely the icing on the cake in the rivalry is the Champions League final in season 1997-1998, when “Los Blancos” have won the final at “Amsterdam ArenA” in the Dutch capital, where Predrag Mijatović’s winning goal was crucial and Jupp Heynckes won the managerial collision against Marcello Lippi, who remains the last manager that managed to qualify Juventus for a major final, when in season 2002–03 “The Old Lady” lost the Italian final from AC Milan, but it’s interesting to mention that exactly Real Madrid were Juventus’ opponents in the semi-finals, when “The Old Lady” eliminated Real Madrid with 4:3 on aggregate, and goalscorers for Juventus were names like David Trezeguet, Pavel Nedved and Alessandro Del Piero, who are only part from all Juventus’ legends in Marcelo Lippi’s selection. Twelve years later another Italian manager will have the opportunity to improve Lippi’s achievement only few days after his first trophy at “Juventus Stadium”, now Massimiliano Allegri will have to find the best solution to oppose against his more experienced compatriot Carlo Ancelotti, who has to take care for his job at “Santiago Bernabeu”, because the Italian manager can easily get sacked, especially if Real Madrid fails in both competitions.
We already mentioned about all the 16 challenges in the Champions League history between both sides – except the final in Amsterdam, both teams have 15 other meetings, in which the balance is completely equal – 7 wins for both sides (17:16 goal difference) and 1 draw, which was in their most recent meeting – in the group phase of the last Champions League’s season, when the game on “Juventus Stadium” ended with a 2-2 draw, which was preceded by a 2:1 win for Real Madrid two weeks before the second leg (in Turin). Cristiano Ronaldo scored three from the 4 goals of his club against “The Old Lady”, while the fourth goal was the 2nd goal in the 2:2 draw and it was scored by Gareth Bale. Unfortunately, for Real Madrid, Gareth Bale has not been in his best form lately and the Welsh attacker is also a doubt for the upcoming clash, because of a calf injury. This will be too much for the visitors, who will travel for Turin without the injured Luka Modric and Karim Benzema as well, and Carlo Ancelotti most likely will pick the 4-4-2 formation, which was successful in The Madrid Derby in the Champions League quarter-finals, when “Los Blancos” finally managed to beat Atletico Madrid this season, and that happened in perhaps their most important match from all 8 during the season.
Final conclusion, betting pick and possible starting squads of Juventus and Real Madrid – UEFA Champions League semi-final 05.05.2015
The main advantage of Juventus will be the compsorue, which will come from their domestic disengagement for the next month, as we expect to see lot of rotations in Max Allegri’s squdas in the remaining 4 Serie A rounds, while Real Madrid must stay focused on home turf as well. However, Juventus will suffer from the serious amount of injuries and “The Old Lady” will be without the injured Kwadwo Asamoah (knee injury), Martin Caceres (ankle injury), Luca Marrone (thigh injury), Romulo and Paul Pogba (hamstring), but definitely the biggest blow for “I Bianconeri” is the absence of their French midfielder Paul Pogba, who also missed the last round against AS Monaco, but Real Madrid seems to be quite difficult opposition than the team from the Principality. Massimiliano Allegri’s headache can be increased especially if the hearth of his midfield, the Chilean Arturo Vidal, fails to recover from an illness and if he miss the first leg against Real Madrid. Anyway, as far as we know Vidal’s character, The Chilean is real figher and we believe that he will manage to recover so he can be on his great level again. Another players in superb form is the Argentinian striker in Massimiliano Allegri’s selection – Calos Tevez, who enjoys to one from his beast seasons so far and Tevez can be proud from his fantastic performances, as Tevez leads in the Serie A’s goalscorer rankings, where he has 20 goals, while in the Champions League Tevez remains the leading figures of “The Old Lady” with his 6 goals in 10 efforts. Another attacking option for “I Bianconeri” is The Spaniard Alvaro Morata, who arrived at “Juventus Stadium” exactly from Real Madrid, which he joined in 2008. Now Morata will have the chance to prove to Ancelotti that he definitely made a mistake and we’re sure that Allegri will give the opportunity to his 22 years old striker, or to the other Spaniard in his selection – Fernando Llorente.
When we look over Real’s squad we certainly notice Karim Benzema’s absence but the spectacular form of Cristiano Ronaldo is another fact that we can’t miss and the Portuguese striker continues his contention with Barca’s forward Lionel Messi, as both players are arguing for the goalscorer price in La Liga, and in the overall Champions League top scorer standings, where they both have 75 goals so far. Incredible.
Now we must return our minds on the upcoming first leg in Turin, where we definitely like the ratios in the different bookies for “Both teams to score”. We definitely believe that both teams can score here, after the low scoring quarter-finals in which they took part. This time we expect more pace and more football arguments here, especially when we will have an English referee of the match. Martin Atkinson and his assistants Michael Mullarkey, Stephen Child, Andre Marriner, Anthony Taylor, Peter Kirkup are the match officials, so we certainly expect more open football and the English referees will certainly let more men’s football here.
Our betting pick is “Both teams to score – Yes“.
Possible starting XI:
Juventus: Buffon – Lichtsteiner, Barzagli, Chiellini, Evra – Marchisio, Pirlo, Vidal – Pereyra – Morata, Tevez. (4-3-1-2)
Real Madrid: Casillas – Marcelo, Varane, Ramos, Arbeloa – James, Illarramendi, Kroos, Isco – Chicharito, Ronaldo. (4-4-2)
Referee: Martin Atkinson.