TWO potential winners of the competition meet on Tuesday night when Real Madrid host PSG at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Group A.
Madrid will seldom have been as big as 16/1 (William Hill) to win the trophy at this stage of the competition in recent years. Yet despite their apparent inconsistency of late Los Merengues are level on points with Barcelona at the top of La Liga and have been swatting away teams in of late.
They came from behind to win at Real Sociedad on Saturday and their last outing in the Champions League, a 6-0 win over a hapless Galatasaray, was much more like the old Real Madrid who have dominated the competition in the last six or seven years.
Qualification to the group stages whould be theirs but there's could still a bit of work to be done against PSG. I say could, because Madrid's place in the last 16 could be confirmed before this match even kicks-off. Club Brugge meet Galatasaray in Turkey at 5.55pm and if that finishes all-square then Zinedine Zidane's side will have qualified. A win for Club Brugge and they'd move to within 2 points of Madrid, with both sides meeting in Belgium on Matchday 6.
Either way, I expect Zidane will want to keep the momentum going (P6 W5 D1) with a win in front of an expectant Bernabéu crowd.
There's also the small matter of avenging Matchday 1's 3-0 humbling at the hands of PSG back in September.
That win for Paris set them up nicely for qualification and they've not looked back since. They top the group with a perfect record and have yet to concede a goal. With a five point lead over Real Madrid, a further point would see them secure top spot, but they have the added security of a home match against Galatasaray on Matchday 6 to wrap that up if need be.
That raises the question of whether Thomas Tuchel will go all out to win this one. Mbappe and Neymar are back among the squad and could feature, but I never like to bet on teams that don't NEED to win, and PSG fall firmly in to that bracket on Tuesday.
There's much more at stake for Zinedine Zidane and his squad. They last thing they'll want to do is leave themselves in need of a point in Brugge so that tips things in favour of the Spaniards for me. They can be backed at 7/5 with Sportingbet to win.
If you prefer a goals bet then look at Madrid to score two or more at 5/6 with Netbet. they've scored 19 goals in their last five outings and have scored two or more in 12 of their last 16 at the Bernabéu.
There's been plenty written about the state of Gareth Bale's relationship with the club and his manager in particular, but the Welshman made an appearance of the bench in San Sebastian on Saturday, helping Madrid recover from a goal down, so he's still clearly in Zidane's thoughts. Bale has a good record of goals in the competition (who could forget his outrageous goals in the 2018 final) and if he starts he's decent bet at 13/2 (Bet365) to open the scoring. That's a BIG ‘if' though so check the team news before backing him.
This UEFA Champions League match between Real Madrid and PSG will be played on Nov 26, 2019 and kick off at 20:00. Check below for our tipsters best Real Madrid vs PSG prediction. You may also visit our dedicated betting previews section for the most up to date previews.
