Champions league final

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Saturday evening in Berlin will see what is undoubtedly the showpiece event of this year’s football calendar as Barcelona and Juventus clash having disposed of Bayern Munich and Real Madrid between them in Europe and dominated their respective domestic leagues. Indeed, the aforementioned sides were the front two in the betting prior to the knockout stages beginning when we wrote our preview of Europe’s premier club competition, and those that followed our recommendation of Juventus to win the famous trophy at 29.0 Each Way will be sitting pretty going into this game with the place money already in the bag. Barcelona were available to back at 7.0 prior to the knockout stage to lift the Champions League for the first time since 2011 and are now as short as 1.36 to be celebrating what would be an historic treble for Louis Enrique in his first season in charge at the Camp Nou.

Reports of a rift between Barcelona’s new manager and Lionel Messi, as well as claims that his job was in danger following back-to-back defeats in the Clasico and at home to Celta Vigo in November, are now distant memories as since then Barcelona have won 40 of their 46 matches with their much vaunted front three breaking all sorts of records in the process. Despite Neymar adapting to Spanish football after his first season and the addition of Suarez, what has been most important for Barcelona is the resurgence of Messi after a disappointing campaign by his exceptionally high standards last season that saw him fail to win a trophy with either Barcelona or Argentina and lose out to Ronaldo in the Ballon D’Or.

The Argentine added yet another stunning goal in Saturday’s 3-1 Copa Del Rey final win to his already substantial highlights reel and it’s important to remember that he is still only 27 years old and we could be seeing at the peak of his powers this season due largely to his adoption of a strict new diet following his World Cup disappointment. After a visit to a notorious Italian nutritionist, Messi gave up some of his favourite foods including milanesa, ice cream, and fizzy drinks, losing five kg by the start of 2015 and this had a clear impact on his performance on the pitch as he looked back to his electric self. In the 18 league games this season prior to January’s Ballon D’Or ceremony, Messi scored 16 goals, but in the 20 matches that followed he found the net 27 times, a 46% increase in his scoring rate. In the build up to this game Gianluigi Buffon described Messi as “an alien that dedicates himself to playing with humans” and that pretty effectively sums up his form this year.

Much like this preview which has focused largely on Barcelona thus far, Juventus have been underrated and underappreciated in their Champions League campaign this season, with various memes going around the internet following the semi-final draw suggesting that Real Madrid already had one foot in the final. However, Real found out the hard way that this Juventus side are not to be underestimated and that their dominance in Serie A is not entirely due to the inadequacy of their challengers, but that they are in their own respect a very good side. Like their illustrious opponents on Saturday evening, Juventus have only lost six matches in all competitions this season, and should they lift the trophy on Saturday evening then they will also be celebrating a treble. In order to do so, they’ll have to improve upon their performance of having the joint-worst record in European Cup/Champions League finals for teams that have taken part in at least three, failing to lift the trophy in five of their previous seven finals. Barcelona, conversely, have reached the final three times in the past nine seasons and won the trophy on each occasion, needing just 90 minutes to get the job done.

Those triumphs are detailed in the table below, together with the other 11 Champions League finals since 2000/01 and the Football Form Labs grading of each of the finalists over this period. We use our grading system, which is loosely based on ELO, to rate all European domestic clubs and it aided us in recommending Juventus prior to the knockout stage as well as backing Argentina and Germany to be the World Cup finalists at 15.0. 

Champions League Finals since 2001

 
What is immediately evident from this table is that Barcelona were the only lower graded side to have beaten a side with a higher grade in 90 minutes since 2000/01. However, that game was one of the closest matched finals in recent times according to our gradings and the other two instances when a lower ranked side picked up the trophy were after penalty shootouts in what could be described as anomalous finals, with Chelsea getting an 88^th minute equaliser in 2012 and Liverpool coming back from 3-0 down at half-time in 2005. Unlike the 2009 final, this season there is a much greater disparity between the two finalists. The only other final that was more unevenly matched according to our grading over this period was the 2013 all-German final between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. Indeed, had you backed the higher graded side to lift the trophy in each of these finals then you would have backed the winner 11/14 times.

What also stands out about these previous finals is that six of the last 14 were draws and both teams have scored in eight of the last 10 finals. In terms of goals scored, there has been a fairly even split with six of the last 14 having more than two strikes, but if we look further into that, in three of the four instances when there was a grade difference of at least eight between the two finalists, there were Over 2.5 goals.

Having looked at historical Champions League finals, next we turn our attention to the path the finalists took to the showpiece event in Berlin on Saturday night. 

Barcelona Path to the Final

 
Barcelona have won 10 of their 12 matches en route to Saturday’s final and have also scored at least twice in 10 of their Champions League games so far, leading at half-time 10 times. Their performance in the knockout stages was particularly impressive and the second leg defeat at Bayern Munich can almost be overlooked as they were so far ahead after the first leg that they didn’t have to concern themselves too much with getting a win in that game. The form of their semi and quarter-final wins can however be questioned, especially since PSG were without Verratti and Ibrahimovic for the first leg of their quarter-final and also lost Thiago Silva early in that game and were forced to replace him with a not yet fully fit David Luiz. Similarly, Bayern were without Ribery, Robben, and Alaba for both legs in the semi-final.

Furthermore, whilst Barcelona were as imperious as usual at the Camp Nou, their only clean sheets on the road in the Champions League this term came against Apoel Nicosia and Ajax. Given Barcelona’s firepower and propensity to not keep that many clean sheets, it’s unsurprising that six of their last eight Champions League games had Over 2.5 goals. The Catalan side don’t have any real injury concerns going into this game, although Iniesta did come off in the Copa Del Rey against Bilbao with a calf complaint, but he is expected to be fit enough to take his place in the starting line up on Saturday. 

Juventus Path to the Final

After losing a couple of tough away games early on in their Champions League campaign, Juventus have since gone unbeaten in their last nine Champions League matches, winning six of these.  Much of that success after a relatively shaky start has been built upon a solid defence as Juventus have conceded just three goals in their last eight Champions League games and it is worth noting that none of these goals came in the second half. Their draws of Monaco and Borussia Dortmund in the quarter-final and last-16 respectively were relatively favourable but their performance to beat last year’s winners Real Madrid over two legs cannot be questioned.

Despite being very solid defensively, Juventus have not exactly been grinding out narrow wins as they put two past Real Madrid at home and scored five against Dortmund across the two legs. The plan for Juventus looks to be to pack the centre of midfield with Pogba, Pirlo, Marchisio and Vidal in the hope of preventing Iniesta and Rakitic from providing their potent front three with too many chances, which is of course easier said than done. Furthermore, they’ll have to make do without their defensive linchpin Giorgio Chiellini who was ruled out of this game on Thursday with a calf problem. Barzagli is likely to be fit enough to step in for Chiellini, but the man who was bitten at the World Cup by Suarez will surely be a big miss for Allegri’s side. In the 11 league games Chiellini missed this season Juventus’s win percentage fell to 55% compared with 74% in the 27 games he started and they also conceded 75% more goals without him in the side.

Given the trend of both teams scoring in Champions League final, its happened in eight of the last 10, together with Barcelona’s tendency to concede even in matches they dominate, as was exhibited in their Copa Del Rey final win over Bilbao when they conceded in the 80^th minute whilst cruising at 3-0 up, both teams to score at 2.0 looks the strongest bet. Though the higher graded side has lifted the trophy in 11 of the last 14 Champions League finals, Barcelona look a little short at 1.36 to make it 12 out of 15. They’ve won their last three Champions League finals in 90 minutes and that looks the way to get them on side rather than through the ‘To Lift the Trophy’ market. Since we expect both teams to score, dutching the Barcelona 2-1 and 3-1 correct score at odds of 9.0 and 15.0 respectively to give combined odds of 5.625 offers decent value. As does backing Barcelona/Barcelona in the HT/FT market at 2.5, as all three of the goals Juventus have conceded in their last eight Champions League games came in the first half, while Barcelona have led at half-time in 10 of their 12 Champions League matches this season.

The only way that we can see Juventus causing a shock is if they manage to take Barcelona to penalties, much like Chelsea and Liverpool did when they defied our grading system to lift the trophy, so for those looking to side with the Italians, backing there to be a penalty shootout at 9.0 or even Juventus to win on penalties at 15.0 is worth a punt.

Tags: barcelona, champions league, final, football, juventus, soccer

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