Juventus hope to end Barca's Champions League adventure

Published on April 6th, 2017 3:29 pm EST
Written By: Cian Murray
Before the second leg of their tie against PSG, there weren't too many gamblers who would have backed Barcelona to still be in the tournament at this stage.

However, they managed to do the impossible and that feat was helped in no small part by the heroics of Neymar. The Brazilian striker was nothing short of outstanding, scoring an epic free-kick and setting up the last gasp winning goal.

The Catalan side will be hoping that there is no such mountain to climb in the second-leg of this tie against Juventus. The Serie A side are at home and will fancy their chances against a Barcelona team that have blown both hot and cold this season.

The Old Lady are around 13/8 to get the victory in Turin. Barca are 17/10 to learn their lesson from the last round and win the away-leg of this tie.

The draw is priced at an enticing 23/10. This price looks like great value if you consider that Juventus have drawn two of their last four games in their league.

The two sides played in the final of the 2015 Champions League final, where Barcelona came away with a 3-1 victory.

Ivan Rakitic got off the mark in the fourth minute of that game. If you fancy a similar start in this fixture, you can put money on there to be a goal in the first 10 minutes at a price of 100/30.

In five of Barcelona's last six games they have scored three or more goals, so some may see value in the total goals market.

Although they didn't find the net in the opening-leg against PSG, we still think you'd be crazy to back them not to score at a price of 9/4.

Juventus have been on target in their last six games too, so backing exactly four goals to be scored at a price of 5/1 looks like an intriguing bet to us.

If you reckon Barcelona will keep them scoreless, you obviously haven't seen too much of The Old Lady this season, but you can still throw away your money at a price of 9/4.

Putting any faith in Barcelona's away performances in this competition might be a bad idea though. They were hammered in Paris against PSG and also lost against Manchester City in the group stages.

Of course, we would like to believe that they have learned their lesson after the scare of nearly going out of the competition in the last round.

However, that is probably not the case and they are now facing a team that is unbeaten on their home pitch in the Champions League this season.

So we are backing Juventus to win both halves at an absolutely crazy price of 8/1. It's a long shot, but we have good reason to believe they can do it.