By Antony Jordan
This Wednesday evening’s football action will decide the final two sides that enter the Quarter Finals of the Champions League and we have two potentially fantastic matches to come on the final night of the last 16 stage of Europe’s top football competition. Tonight will see Barcelona host Arsenal at the Camp Nou with a two goal advantage from North London three weeks ago while the Allianz Arena sees the home side in this Bayern Munich v Juventus match slightly ahead after a 2-2 draw in Turin.
We preview both clashes around Europe this evening with online sportsbook Unibet.com to provide our best Champions League picks.
Barcelona v Arsenal: 1.25 – 5.50 – 13.00
Things have come crashing down around Arsene Wenger and his Arsenal side once again as the business end of the season has come around. They come into this match sitting six points behind their local rivals, Tottenham, who sit second to Leicester in the Premier League and out of the FA Cup, which they had won for the last two seasons, after suffering a 2-1 loss to Watford at the weekend. The Champions League Quarter Finals look far beyond them too as they were dominated on home soil after a bright opening to the first leg on home soil before two second half goals from Lionel Messi, who broke his duck of scoring against Petr Cech in that match, saw Barcelona with a large advantage for this second leg at the Camp Nou.
Arsenal’s last two visits to this ground have resulted in 4-1 and 3-1 defeats with the Barcelona hero from three weeks ago, Lionel Messi, having scored six of those seven goals when they met in 2010 and the following year. Barcelona come into this match having won 18 of their last 19 games and they are unbeaten in 37 fixtures in all competitions while Arsenal have won just one of their last seven games.
We see this match going only one way and we expect Lionel Messi to once against standout as the star man.
Our best Barcelona v Arsenal bet is Barcelona to win and Messi to score anytime @ 1.79 in the Unibet Sportsbook!
Bayern Munich v Juventus: 1.44 – 4.50 – 8.00
Many people expected this Champions League tie to be one way football as Bayern Munich cruised past the Italian champions and into the last eight, but this tie could not be closer coming into this second leg at the Allianz Arena. For a while it appeared that the Germans were running away with the first leg in Turin as Thomas Muller and Arjen Robben goals in the 43rd and 55th set them up comfortably, but the home side three weeks ago clawed their way back into the game as Paulo Dybala and Stefano Sturaro levelled the match with goals in the 63rd and 76th minutes to see them set this second half of the tie up perfectly. Can they complete the comeback by triumphing in Munich this Wednesday night?
The last time that Juventus defeated Bayern in German came in November 2004 when they won home and away in the group stage of the 2004/05 competition and since then they have lost two and drawn one of their three matches since, including losing 2-0 at the Quarter Final stage in 2013. The Italian side will find things tough in this match too as Bayern have won all of their last nine home games in the Champions League and have averaged four goals a game, with 36 scored in total and 14 were scored in their group games this season’s group matches against Dinamo Zagreb, Arsenal and Olympiakos.
Juventus, on the other hand, scored three and conceded three on their travels in the group stage this season as they defeated Man City, drew with Borussia Monchengladbach and were beaten by Sevilla. With these two sides having very different home and away form we see this match ending just like the other game of the night as we see the home side progressing to the last eight of the Champions League with victory, with the strikers of Robert Lewandowski and Thomas Muller adding to their 13 goals in the competition this season.
Our top Bayern Munich v Juventus tip is back Bayern to win with Thomas Muller to score anytime at odds of 2.95 with Unibet.com.