Real Madrid will look to make it two wins from two in this season’s Champions League when they take on Kairat Almaty at the Ortalyk Stadion on Tuesday evening.
Los Blancos kicked off their bid for a record-extending European crown with a narrow 2-1 win over Marseille on matchday one.
However, Xabi Alonso’s side have since crashed to their first defeat of the season, suffering a 5-2 thrashing away at rivals Atletico Madrid on Saturday.
Seeking to bounce back at the first time of asking, the Spanish heavyweights will look to claim top honours in Kazakhstan this midweek.
After causing a major upset in the play-off round by seeing off Celtic, Kairat Almaty endured a baptism of fire on their league phase debut, being swatted aside 4-1 by Sporting Lisbon.
Rafael Urazbakhtin’s side rebounded from that defeat with a 3-1 win over Zhenys last week, maintaining their place at the top of the Kazakhstan Premier League in the process.
How the bookies view it: No hope for the hosts
In what is without doubt the biggest game in their history, Kairat Almaty are massive 22/1 underdogs on Boylesports while the draw is also considered improbable at 17/2 with the same firm.
You won’t get rich backing Real Madrid to come out on top here, with an away win as short as 1/9 on Boylesports.
Head to head: History book blank
Given that Kairat Almaty are in uncharted territory this season, it will come as no surprise to learn that this will be the first-ever meeting between the two teams.
Players to watch: Mpabbe to make his mark?
After bagging a brace against Marseille on matchday one, Kylian Mbappe looks well worthy of support to repeat the trick on Tuesday evening at 13/10 on Bet365.
Edmilson grabbed a consolation goal for Kairat in their aforementioned 4-1 loss at Sporting Lisbon. The Brazilian forward is as big as 11/2 on Bet365 to make the net bulge during this contest.
Predicted line-ups
Kairat Almaty appear to be carrying a clean bill of health coming into this clash, not to mention they should be the fresher of the two teams after being afforded the weekend off by the Kazakh FA.
Real Madrid will be without injured trio Antonio Rudiger, Ferland Mendy and Trent Alexander-Arnold, while Daniel Carvajal will miss out after being sent off against Marseille.
Kairat Almaty: Kalmurza; Tapalov, Martynovich, Sorokin, Mata; Arad, Glazer; Gromyko, Jorginho, Satpayev; Edmilson
Real Madrid: Courtois; Valverde, Militao, Huijsen, Carreras; Camavinga, Tchouameni; Mastantuono, Guler, Vinicius; Mbappe
Anything else catch the eye?
With Real Madrid too short to support on the nose, a more palatable price can be engineered by backing the visitors to win to nil at 7/10 on Boylesports.
While Kairat did notch against Sporting Lisbon, it is worth noting that they failed to fire in five of their eight Champions League qualifiers.
The Kazakh minnows lost both halves of the game against Sporting on matchday one and a repeat here against star-studded Real Madrid looks overpriced at 10/11 on Boylesports.
GambleAware