Tuesday night sees the Santiago Bernabeu play host to a blockbuster Champions League semi-final first leg tie between Real Madrid and Manchester City, one year on from when Los Blancos ousted Pep Guardiola’s side at the last four stage in one of the competition’s most unlikely comebacks.
Our Real Madrid predictions include a brace of best bets inspired by a surprising City away trend as a well as a rare opportunity to back a history-making goal scorer at reasonable odds.
Real Madrid vs Man City betting tips
Match Result – Draw @ 13/5
Erling Haaland to score anytime @ Evens
Match Result – Draw and over 2.5 Goals @ 8/1
Get the latest Champions League betting odds from Betzone
City look questionable favourites given UCL road record
Manchester City are priced at 6/5 favourites to claim a first leg win in Spain, which is perhaps not overly appealing given Real Madrid have won all five of their UCL home games this season.
The verdict shifts from unappealing to “needs to be opposed” given City have yet to win away in this season’s Champions League. To date they’ve drawn all four of their road trips in the competition – against FC Copenhagen, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig and Bayern Munich.
Of all the ways of betting against the City win (Real double chance, draw no bet etc) the draw has the most generous odds. Given both legs of last season’s double header were decided by a single goal (extra time not included) and many of the same principals will take part, this should be close.
Tip: Match Result – Draw @ 13/5 ” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>Match Result – Draw @ 13/5
Rare opportunity to bet City goal machine can’t be missed
Erling Haaland averages a goal every 58 minutes in the Champions League across his career to date. It’s the best such ratio in the history of the competition and even more impressive given his early involvements were with more moderate teams in Red Bull Salzburg and Borussia Dortmund.
The insatiable striker has struck 18 times his last 12 games and 12 times in eight UCL outings this term. The latter record is skewed by the five he notched in one game against RB Leipzig, but he nonetheless netted in six of those eight outings.
Real have conceded in three of their last four outings including twice away to Girona and at home to Almeria. They will also be without first-choice centre half Eder Militao through suspension.
More typically available at odds of 2/5 in the anytime goalscorer market for most Premier League, Evens looks very fair here, even against such illustrious opposition.
Tip: Erling Haaland to score anytime @ Evens ” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>Erling Haaland to score anytime @ Evens
Collision of attacking talents can’t fail to produce goals
The thinking behind backing the draw has been explained above but it could be worth opting to tag on over 2.5 goals in the fixture in search of a more handsome return.
Both legs of last season’s semi produced over 2.5 goals, with the first leg delivering seven in a game where City should have helped themselves to even more.
Add the deadly Haaland to an equation that already included Karim Benzema, Vinicius Jr, Rodrygo and Kevin De Bruyne and it’s difficult to see either defence maintaining order.
