oddschecker have the latest odds from the ‘Name the Finalists’ Champions League market, with Liverpool and Manchester City into 11/8 for a final showdown.
All English final?
In recent years the standard that Liverpool and Manchester City have set has been unparalleled; with the decline of the big European sides of old like Barcelona, Milan, Inter, Juventus etc. they have come to the fore as the two sides to beat if you want to win the Champions League.
You only had to watch five minutes of their titanic tussle at the weekend to know that these two are levels above anyone else at present. The players in these two sides rarely put a foot wrong and on the rare occasion they do, they’re crucified by their teammates for it.
In this special market from Sky Bet, ‘Name the finalists’, it is Liverpool and City who lead the market (11/8) as the bookmaker's most likely scenario for the Champions League final in May.
Liverpool have one foot in the semi-final after taking a 3-1 first-leg lead over Benfica. Pep Guardiola’s side, meanwhile, face a tougher task away to Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid but are expected to prevail. The Spanish outfit should at least get a shot on target after failing to do so at the Etihad.
The Bavarians on the brink
The most likely team to contain City or Liverpool would be Bayern Munich, or so you would have thought last week until Unai Emery stopped them in their tracks. They tactically outclassed the Germans and stifled star man Robert Lewandowski.
Bayern could claw it back with home advantage but still, question marks will be raised should they enter the semi-finals and come up against Liverpool. If you fancy Bayern’s chances you can get a Bayern Munich and Man City final meeting at 10/3.
An outside shot with Bayern in this market would be Lewandowski and co (with Bayern) meeting Karim Benzema’s Real Madrid in the final at 7/1 - not the most likely scenario but stranger things have certainly happened.
La Liga’s resurgence
It is fair to say that in recent years we have seen a decline of the Spanish sides in the Champions League. The last time a Spanish side won the competition was Real Madrid back in 2018 and since then the 13-time winners have struggled.
On only two occasions since 2018 have a Spanish side made it to the semi-finals, but we could be seeing a resurgence of sorts as there are three sides in the quarter-finals with at least one (Real Madrid) looking very likely to make it to the semi-finals.
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If you fancy an all-Spanish final, then there are only two possible scenarios - Los Blancos against the Yellow Submarine (28/1) or the Mattress Makers (Atletico) against the Yellow Submarine (100/1). The latter is almost a pipe dream for most Spanish fans with Atletico having to claw back a 1-0 deficit against the possession kings Manchester City.
What other scenarios are possible?
Two teams on the brink of elimination are Julian Nagelsmann’s Bayern side and Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea with the latter facing an even tougher task than the former. Tuchel was honest in his post-match assessment stating that “if we play like that, we will get battered at the Bernabeu”.
They will certainly need to up their game if they want to continue their defence of the title they won last year. Bayern looked a shadow of their former selves in the first leg going down 1-0 but they should have enough at home to squeeze into the next round. A Chelsea vs Bayern final is 40/1, while the unlikely alternative all English final is Chelsea vs Liverpool (28/1).
| FINALISTS | ODDS |
|---|---|
| Liverpool vs Man City | 11/8 |
| Bayern Munich vs Man City | 10/3 |
| Liverpool vs Real Madrid | 7/2 |
| Bayern Munich vs Real Madrid | 7/1 |
| Atletico Madrid vs Liverpool | 14/1 |
| Man City vs Villarreal | 18/1 |
