Last week saw the final round of 16 games in the 2022-23 Champions League campaign and we now know the fixtures for the quarter finals!
Benfica Vs Inter Milan
First Leg 11th April – Second Leg 19th April
Manchester City Vs Bayern München
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First Leg 11th April – Second Leg 19th April
Real Madrid Vs Chelsea
First Leg 12th April – Second Leg 18th April
AC Milan Vs Napoli
First Leg 12th April – Second Leg 18th April
Of course the last 8 of the illustrious competition always features some fantastic games, today we are going to be taking a look at which of these teams we think will be progressing and why we believe that to be the case.
Starting off with Inter Milan. Here’s a little bit of a spoiler alert for this one, Benfica are actually the favourites for this fixture, however with a club that has the history and standing of Inter, it is kind of hard to look past them. It’s fair to say that Inter had the harder round of 16 draw also with Porto being European royalty. But with the players available to them for me, I really can’t see Inter slipping up at this point and with the Serie A title pretty much out of reach they will be putting all their eggs into one basket.
My next favourite is going to shock a lot of people, Bayern Munich. While City are the well oiled machine that they are with the robot Haaland up front demolishing teams left right and centre. However, again, City had an “easy” draw against RB Leipzig that they walked through, while Bayern played PSG and looked really good against them. Yes PSG were missing Neymar but with a back 4 of Stanisic, Upamecano, de Ligt and Alphonso Davies it would’ve been a tough challenge regardless. The full backs specifically are a huge reason why Bayern play so well, Davies is an incredibly versatile player to have down their left side, often playing at left wing for Canada. His pace and technical ability often has him dominating that side of the pitch.
Now for the obvious one, Real Madrid Vs Chelsea. I think it’s safe to say that almost everybody believes that Real Madrid are taking this one, they humbled a struggling Liverpool team and with them being 9 points behind Barca in La Liga, it’s safe to say the cups are where it’s at for them and you can’t really look past a team that has won as many Champions League titles as Madrid. Their roster is absolutely stacked and honestly it always has been, there’s a reason they are often referred to as the galacticos. While other teams may have “caught up” there is just something completely different about this team and the way they do things. Chelsea could surprise a lot of people, but realistically, this should be a walk in the park for Madrid.
Finally, AC Milan Vs Napoli. With Victor Osimhen leading the line for Napoli, scoring for fun and terrorising defences, it should be easy to guess who I’m going for here. Napoli have been very good in the Champions League this season as well as Serie A where they currently have a 21 point advantage. That isn’t to say Milan can’t do it, their tie against Spurs wasn’t an easy one, even if they did just scrape through. They did what they needed to do, unfortunately for them however, they drew a monster that shows no sign of stopping on their path to glory.
Now we’ve talked about who we think will progress from the Quarter Final, it’s time to take a look at what the experts think, since we only have odds for the first leg games we can’t paint a full picture using just these opinions, however based on the given odds it will tell a story. I do believe however some of these quarter final games are going to be exceptionally close and it will make for an exciting round of games!
We checked out all of the best Ontario sports betting sites for odds for this round of games, so we can determine the experts’ favourites! Firstly, AC Milan Vs Napoli. It is understandable that Napoli are favourites here but the odds are quite close, Napoli are +137 favourites and AC Milan are +200, returning $11.87 & $15 from a stake of $5. Next is Benfica Vs Inter Milan, surprisingly Benfica are favourites at +120 returning $11 while Inter are +250 returning, $17.50. For City Vs Bayern, City are -110 favourites returning $9.54 while Bayern are +300 returning $20 and finally, for Real Vs Chelsea. Real are -110 also with Chelsea being the heaviest underdog at +333 returning $21.66.
While we’re here it’s worth taking a look at who are the favourites to win the competition now we’re down to the last eight teams. So here are the odds from underdog to favourite! AC Milan hold up the pack with odds of +2500, returning $130, then Benfica, Chelsea and Inter Milan at +1400 returning $75, then Real Madrid come in at +700 returning $40. Tied second place are Bayern Munich and Napoli at +350 returning $22.50 and finally the favourites are Manchester City at +225 returning $16.25. All of these returns are from a stake of $5!
So football fans, what are we thinking for this one? Do we think these predictions are correct? If I’m being honest I can see Chelsea being dark horses for this competition. While their league form may be iffy at best, they’ve been putting in decent performances in Europe for this campaign and personally I feel like Real Madrid might expect an easier game of things, compared to if they were against someone like City or Napoli perhaps.
Only one thing stays true however, with 13 games to go we still have a lot of football to take in and enjoy between now and the 2023 final at the Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul on the 10th June.
