UEFA Champions League: Red Bull Leipzig vs. Atletico Madrid Betting Preview, Odds, Prediction

Red Bull Leipzig made a historic success advancing to the top eight teams on the continent. Meanwhile, their rivals, Atletico Madrid, see this odd situation as a unique chance to finally win the Champions League trophy. According to many, this contest will be the least interesting because of the style of play preferred by both sides, but then again, this is the UCL, the competition where we see unreal results.

Preview 

Red Bull (+200) was in a good mood before the pandemic broke out, and it seems that the team from Leipzig didn’t profit at all with the pause. Back then, Werner and the boys sliced Tottenham with 4-0 on aggregate, indicating that they are pretty serious in their intention to go deep into the UCL knockout stage.

A big handicap for Julian Nagelsmann and his crew will be Werner’s absence. The fantastic forward signed a deal with Chelsea and decided to join the Blues immediately following the end of the Bundesliga, in order to adjust better and faster to the new environment. He was arguably their biggest weapon up front, and the guy with the deadliest counter-attack in Germany, possibly entire Europe. 

Leipzig played one club friendly before this game, against Wolfsburg, and that ended 1-1. Renato Steffen scored for the Wolves in the 70th minute, and Patrick Schick leveled the score two minutes later, from the penalty. 

Atletico Madrid (+135) ended its La Liga campaign pretty quietly, without overexposing themselves too much. All the eyes were set on Real and Barca, while Atletico played its matches, not having any pressure or attention.

And during that time, they haven’t lost a single match, and that is something just a few noticed. Since the comeback after COVID-19 pause, they recorded 11 contests in a row without a defeat. Once adding eight before that, we come up to a total number of 19. 

Six of the most recent nine games Atletico played saw under 2.5 goals, and that suggests that they didn’t back out from their usual style of play, which involves strong defense, and slow tempo.

Latest News

As we said, Timo Werner left Red Bull. Apart from him, Hartmann and Marcel Sabitzer are also injured, and that is a massive blow for the Bulls. The latter one is a fantastic player upfront.

For Atletico, Correa is in quarantine, while Sime Vrsaljko stands as doubtful for this match. 

Head to Head Matches

We haven’t found any matches between these two sides so far. 

Prediction

Without Werner and Sabitzer, Red Bull is far less competitive than with them in the starting lineup. Even with those two guys, we would give an edge to Atletico, who is more experienced in matches such as this one, and has better players when looking at the entire roster.

The Madridians seem much tougher , and after all, their season was completed much later than Bundesliga. Therefore, betting on their victory would be a smart and profitable decision. The moneyline on that is +135. 

If you don’t believe in this suggestion, under 2.5 goals is the next recommendation, -200.