UEFA Champions League Round of 16: Futures Odds Recommendations, Money-Line and O/U Goals Picks on the Opening Leg

It isn’t very often that an inaccurate set of odds comes with the inaccuracy right at the top of the board, with a poorly handicapped team standing front and center next to its unwise sportsbook line. It’s even weirder if the market in question belongs to a brand that’s got the richest purse-strings and deepest quality in the most famous league in the world.

However, that’s exactly the scenario with this year’s UEFA Champions League odds out of London and Las Vegas…vis-a-vis one very well-known soccer club known as Sky Blues of Manchester City.

WagerBop has compared Man City’s annual Champions League futures odds to the national-championship betting lines of the Gonzaga Bulldogs early in the 2020s. Gonzaga has lorded over the West Coast Conference of college basketball much like Man City has dominated its domestic competition in England for several years. Gonzaga is finally fading at state-side sportsbooks as a popular futures-pick to win a national collegiate championship, after failing to earn the mantle throughout the program’s streak of success. Manchester City’s record in the UEFA Champions League is comparable, for Sky Blues have never won the European crown despite year after year of being favored by all bookmakers to do so. The Beautiful Game isn’t played on hardwood, though, and soccer handicappers have a stubborn streak that goes beyond those of the stodgiest March Madness marks. Premier League struggles or no, Sky Blues are the top UEFA pick again, and by a shocking margin of 3-to-1 over the next most-popular gambling picks to lift hardware in 2023.

UEFA Odds Top Heavy Prior to the Round of 16

City is FanDuel Sportsbook’s familiar (+200) favorite to prevail in the Champions League Final this June, despite a combination of factors that could limit bets-taken on the best team in England. Pep Guardiola’s team has never conquered the UEFA Champions League, failing to win the competition despite playing well enough in Group Stage to become the prohibitive futures-odds favorite to earn international honors. Nonetheless, the team’s Champions League odds are only rivaled by a single domestic foe this season.

Sky Blues are laboring to gain momentum in England. City pulled Jack Grealish and Kyle Walker from the pitch in a dull 0-2 loss to Southampton in this year’s EFL Cup playoffs, at least ending any chatter about how alternative competitions are getting Sky Blues’ best shot while domestic league matches go neglected. But regardless, Man United prevailed in a key January match at Old Trafford. Man City’s 71% possession produced a goal, but it also created no other shots-on-target while MUFC’s potent lineup roared out from the back.

Manchester City’s focus rests on winning competitions of prestige. But we’ve grown used to watching Sky Blues crush minnows in early-round tournament action, a specter that’s gone missing along with Man City’s overall domestic league form. Simultaneously, the defending European champion Real Madrid is getting its own challenge on Spanish soil as the Champions League mainstay Barcelona surges back to the aristocracy. Real Madrid’s odds are gaining at 11/1, but pose no threat to City’s prodigious (and optimistic) action.

If the Premier League is good enough to win the European crown, then certainly Manchester City is good enough to. But is 2023 really the year in which to go all-in on Sky Blues to break through, given that the club is treading water in all domestic events, not just bouts that Guardiola decides aren’t worth much effort?

None of the typical explanations seem to suffice, except that the Champions League field could be considered weak at the top for once. Bayern Munich is not running away with the Bundesliga title as is so often anticipated, and none of Paris Saint-Germain’s star power can drag Parisians’ odds shorter than 7-to-1 as bettors consider Ligue 1’s weak modern record in the Champions League’s final stages. Most critically, the other Premier League teams in this cycle’s UEFA bracket are badly ailing in form, confidence, and points.

Chelsea F.C. and Liverpool, widely expected to finish top-4 or top-6 in the Premier League in 2022-23, are each lagging badly behind. Reds’ appearance in a recent 0-3 league loss to Seagulls has been slammed as the worst Liverpool performance of the 2020s, and it is not as if Liverpool is suffering some monumental rash of injuries on the pitch. Salah played at forward against Brighton for the entire match, while names like Jordan Henderson and his fellow Three Lions recruit Trent Alexander-Arnold toiled behind him. But each of the 2 latter-mentioned star footballers took a yellow card in the bout.

Reds had an opportunity to reclaim momentum by either winning a marquee Premiership fixture over Blues or taking revenge on Seagulls in Round 4 of the FA Cup. Neither scenario would come to pass as Liverpool drew with Chelsea in a dull outcome, then fell to Brighton again. Reds now stand 10 points behind the 4th-place teams of early 2023 and can boast only (+230) odds to finish with England’s quartet of automatic UEFA Champions League qualifiers for next year. Worse still, this February, Reds are drawn vs Real Madrid.

Liverpool is a 10-to-1 pick to win the UEFA Champions League in spring, and enjoys optimistic (+115) odds to beat Real Madrid in the opening leg of the opponents’ upcoming Round-of-16 tie. But some of the betting action behind those odds should be attributed merely to Reds’ worldwide popularity and the sentimentality behind recreational money-line picks. Real Madrid, after all, is the defending Champions League victor, and Liverpool’s problems in England far exceed those of a team simply transitioning to a UEFA-centric organizational plan such as Man City has intimated this decade.

Chelsea’s incomplete lineup has represented the brand nobly against numerous top-rated sides in 2022-23, forging a recent draw with Red Devils, and losing to Sky Blues and Gunners by only the smallest of margins. But the club’s 2022-23 Champions League Group Stage draw was so fortuitous, and Chelsea was knocked out of England’s tournament brackets so handily, that any long-term sunshine from the lack of difficult schedule turns is offset by gloomy, that the club could soon be wrapping up the winter campaign with almost no wins vs highly-ranked opponents from anywhere on the continent. Blues’ form has been so questionable in winter that Chelsea frittered away 7 points to Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, and Fulham within a group of 4 Premier League kickoffs. Blues maintain only (+1400) championship odds headed into a 2-legged bout vs Dortmund.

Man City’s draw in the Round of 16 is one solid angle behind Sky Blues’ nearly prohibitive odds to win their maiden European crown. Pep Guardiola’s club is a (-130) money-line favorite to stake out at least a 1-goal advantage on rival turf when the underdog RB Leipzig hosts Manchester City in one of February’s final 2-legged ties to kick off. Bundesliga’s representatives stand as a (+320) pick to win the opening leg.

It’s also easy to see how the draw affects Bayern and PSG’s championship futures odds for the worse. The iconic teams are scheduled to face off in France on February 14th, with each side just a single lousy leg away from being written-out of the race before City even plays.

Almost none of the Champions League’s “loveable” Cinderellas, like Ajax, or Sheriff Tiraspol, are competing in this year’s bracket. But don’t be surprised if Tottenham Hotspur (+2100) and Borussia Dortmund (+4400) tend to draw increased dark-horse action as supremely talented teams from the 2 leagues that dominated World Cup rosters in Qatar. Chelsea, after all, won the 2020-21 UEFA Champions League following a cycle in which Blues scarcely came close to dominating the English Premier League.

WagerBop readers should remember that “lovability” is in the eye of the beholder, especially this close to Valentine’s Day. Just because there’s no alternate candidate whom Champions League bettors are rallying around doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be any, as Man City is one of the weaker run-away favorites in ages.

Our recommendation is for Champions League futures bettors to wait, patiently, and then jump on Bayern or Paris’ odds once the Round of 16 is winding down, and Man City – most probably – is found limping into the quarterfinals with yet more betting lines that are shorter than they should be, leaving the door open to the favorable odds on teams playing with superior 2022-23 form on domestic and international stages. (City’s record was surpassed by half-of-a-dozen teams in UEFA’s Group Stage in spite of a nice Group G draw.)

Beginners will glean why Manchester City’s lead on the betting board is so exaggerated as soon as they see Bayern and PSG’s unlucky Round-of-16 draw against one another in the schedule of legs on scroll. But there’s still an obvious pro-Manchester bias baked into the cake. It’s not likely to disappear completely once the next round is in the books. Much like the Gonzaga Bulldogs of the early 2020s, bookmakers will have to see the gigantic odds-on favorites lose before giving up on them, and handicapping another brand on top.

UEFA Champions League: 2022-23 Round of 16 Opening Legs, Odds, and Smart Picks

Tuesday, February 14: AC Milan vs Tottenham Hotspur

Tottenham is at least as well-respected as any side in the Premier League, even when Harry Kane’s supporting cast doesn’t contribute enough goals to get Lilywhites into the top-4. But the writing is on the wall, or at least the money-line odds on the board. Spurs are yet another EPL side that’s let down speculators too many times to become a popular pick against Italy’s stonewall club-team defense, and as such, Tottenham is the slight (+170) underdog for an opening road-leg in Milan (+165) in a match with “optimistic” (-122) odds from FanDuel Sportsbook on the low-side of O/U (2.5) total goals.

Spurs, to emphasize the point of how tricky Tottenham’s money-line markets can be, are coming off a beautiful upset of Manchester City, and then an embarrassing breakdown vs Leicester in domestic league play. Those (+230) Draw odds found at FanDuel Sportsbook and elsewhere are also anything but generous to gamblers, considering how volatile a Premier League team’s UEFA results can be when domestic glory goes awry.

It’s hard not to be attracted to Tottenham’s (+1) spread at FanDuel, however, even at 1-to-2 odds. Should the Serie A club hold a 1-goal lead late in the match, it won’t be the typical Italian circle-the-wagons scenario against Harry Kane’s attack, because the actual bout between the teams won’t be half over.

WagerBop’s Pick: Tottenham ATS (+1) (-210)

Tuesday, February 14: Paris Saint-Germain vs Bayern Munich

WagerBop doesn’t have space to dive deeply into soccer’s tactics – or any sport’s subtleties – given our “6 continent” approach to providing the latest sports-betting news and color commentary. (When there’s a league in Antarctica, and its owners are squabbling over who gets to be called “Penguins,” we’ll be first on scene, or at least the first to tune-in and report remotely from a warmer neighborhood.) Instead, we’ve tried to give readers a keen sense of an equally important prediction-angle over the years, which is that headlines scream and shout while coaches and athletes calmly game-plan, and the media’s yelping can create bad odds and easy picks.

Not that a grim headline is always lying to us. You’ve got to separate the wheat from the chaff when you come across them. For instance, it’s hard to miss the top Google-ranking soccer article out of Germany this week, which states “PSG in Crisis” headed into Tuesday’s opening leg against visiting Bayern Munich. In fairness, supporters in Paris can’t claim that the article itself is a biased hit-piece designed to throw Parisians off the mark. Germany’s football media is clearly tongue-in-cheek when it refers to “panic” out of Messi’s team headquarters, as if they’re not counting out PSG’s boosted UEFA lineup any more than Bavarians are.

PSG’s “panic” has mostly been due to uncharacteristic poor form in French fixtures, not unlike Man City’s problems with what ought to be a vulnerable Premier League field in 2023. But now that Messi has sat-out a recent match with injury, and as the great veteran may be hampered if he’s able to go this week at all, the circumstances are taking a toll on Tuesday’s odds. Bayern is a (+130) money-line pick on rival soil.

Kylian Mbappe, an equally critical cog in PSG’s monster of a front line, is also ailing. But the bookmakers at FanDuel continue to offer generous (-152) odds on Under (3.5) total goals between Bavarians and host Parisians, even though an injury scenario such as losing the world’s 2 best attackers could compel PSG to perform more cautiously than usual. After all, wherever the match is held, it’s just an opening tie.

There is currently no “Away Goals Rule” in place to spur a leading team into piling-on forward numbers, should Paris indeed look as overwhelmed vs Bayern as those “panicked” supporters think.

WagerBop’s Pick: Under (3.5)

Wednesday, February 15: Borussia Dortmund vs Chelsea F.C.

Dortmund (+155) is also a slight money-line favorite to post an aggregate-goals advantage over Chelsea (+175) as the Round of 16 gets underway, even though the former club has maintained a reputation as the “Bayern Munich Prospects Team” in Bundesliga. Chelsea’s issues trying to coax a wounded lineup into the top-half of the Premier League, let alone the top-4, lies behind the betting lines for Wednesday. But so does Dortmund’s rally on domestic grounds, as one of the several clubs hot on Bayern Munich’s heels on the Bundesliga table.

Chelsea’s disappointing series of Premier League draws is upping the demand for hair-replacement products among Stamford Bridge supporters. But balding, nail-biting, and antacid-swigging or not, those same Pensioners faithful would have to admit the Chelsea back-line has been quietly faring better.

WagerBop’s Pick: Draw (+230)

Wednesday, February 15: Club Brugge vs Benfica

Benfica is FanDuel’s 1-to-1 road favorite in the week’s potentially “forgotten” tie next to Spurs, Chelsea, and PSG vs Bayern. The Glorious One’s chances of advancing through to the quarter-final round are (-355) in another bright sportsbook line that’s nice for Portugal’s club ranks, but also bad for speculators who’re looking for profitable, straight ahead wagers instead of fancy combination picks and parlays.

Don’t overlook a chance to pick (+104) odds and Under (2.5) goals, though, considering that the domestic-form angle appears to have gone out the window for bookmakers setting Wednesday’s “other” UEFA lines. Benfica’s lively attack was stunted in an ugly tournament loss on 2/9, while Club Brugge was shut-out in 3 consecutive Champions League Group Stage meetings before getting flushed out of the Belgian Cup, and scoring only a modicum of tallies against so-so opposition in the dull days after that.

WagerBop’s Pick: Under (2.5)

Tuesday, February 21: Liverpool vs Real Madrid

Early-odds speculators might have thought they had a jump on Liverpool’s UEFA markets earlier this cycle, as Liverpool was conquering EPL sides like Man City and Tottenham while roaring through the Group Stage. Real Madrid, by contrast, is an aging team in transition within some key roles, and couldn’t be counted on to have an elite 11-up effort throughout the medal round while defending its hardware from last year.

To say that recent results “belie” those impressions would be an understatement. Liverpool’s seeming belly-flop in domestic play (Reds stand even lower on the table than Blues as of this weekend) coincides with a series of triumphs for Los Blancos, including a powerhouse win in the FIFA Club World Cup Final, multiple wins against hot rivals in the Copa del Rey, and a surgical 2-0 triumph over Valencia led by Vini Jr.

The betting public has responded enough to make Real Madrid a somewhat more portentous underdog at (+200) money-line odds when Liverpool hosts Real Madrid at Anfield next Tuesday. However, Reds’ (+120) odds to prevail in the opening leg show definite signs of sentimentality and wishful thinking. It’s safe to say the odds on Real Madrid aren’t 2-to-1 at your friendly neighborhood sportsbook in Spain.

WagerBop’s Pick: Real Madrid (+200)

Tuesday, February 21: Eintracht Frankfurt vs Napoli

We also expect the money-line odds on Napoli (+135) to draw popular action, and perhaps contract toward 1/1 risk and reward as week #2 of the Round of 16 approaches. FanDuel’s bookmakers are wisely offering just (+190) or about 2-to-1 odds on host Eintracht Frankfurt, probably citing the level-par history of matches when the top tiers of the German and Italian leagues collide. But there’s no doubt Napoli will be thought of as the “sexier” pick by the media and casual supporters after having out-paced legendary sides in Group Stage.

The “Slipper Kickers” of Eintracht Frankfurt (the team’s other nicknames include “Moody Diva,” an ominous moniker of sorts for a club in need of knockout-round morale) suffered their first embarrassing clean-sheet loss of 2023 against unheralded German foe FC Köln on Sunday. Quite apart from a harbinger of the Champions League outcome, the resulting negative headlines could make Frankfurt’s match odds more favorable.

WagerBop’s Pick: No Recommendation as of Monday 2/13

Wednesday, February 22: Inter Milan vs F.C. Porto

The typical scene at a sportsbook is money-line and spread gamblers, aka “sides” predictors, looking for late angles and even live-bets to make late in a round of play … while those scientific, pesky “goals” speculators have their smart-money picks all lined up in the morning already. But when it comes to UEFA’s 2022-23 Round of 16, it might be the sides-takers who get to smile early-on while the book’s Over/Under sharks are forced to loiter around for a while. The most vulnerable O/U odds can be found late in the opening legs.

To wit, Porto is the type of scrappy (+340) underdog that managed a win and a loss against La Liga in Group Stage, while Inter Milan has scored a grand total of 10 goals in the competition so far. Yet the betting lines on Over (2.5) (-118) are less generous than those on Under (2.5) (-104) as bookmakers seem to anticipate some sort of lopsided match. Milan’s attack has gone quiet on domestic turf outside of a brief Super Cup flourish.

WagerBop’s Pick: Under (2.5)

Wednesday, February 22: RB Leipzig vs Manchester City

Is there anything predictable about Man City’s form in 2023? The club almost seems to have a “Manchester United” vibe going in which Sky Blues lose-out at every challenging turn and yet remain stubbornly in touch with the Premiership points lead. City was held scoreless in 2 consecutive UEFA fixtures earlier this cycle, making the Premier League side’s (-130) odds to out-score host RB Leipzig into a truly anxious gamble.

FanDuel speculators may be drawn to the book’s 1-to-1.5 odds on Over (2.5) goals scored at Red Bull Arena, especially before Man City mounts the task of 3 tough domestic league matches in a span of 6 days. Should there be further nicks in Sky Blues’ armor on the back-line and in midfield, an already inconsistent set of strikers will be charged with carrying the effort on hostile grounds. Why does the the goal-total’s high side forecast feel like comfortable shark-waters and not a garden variety “cheering interest’ wager this time? Possibly because Sky Blues won’t be yawning with a 1-0 lead, but trying to build an overwhelming edge, following-up on any significant chance of getting a back-leg breather at home on March 14th.

WagerBop’s Pick: Over (2.5)