Ranking Champions League teams with best odds to overturn deficits, including Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Barca
Eight teams are bidding to overcome first leg deficits but will any of them actually manage it?
By
James Benge
•
8 min read
The Champions League round of 16 returns for its second legs on Tuesday (on Paramount+) after an initial round of fixtures that did not see a single draw in any of the eight games. For some -- Lazio, Borussia Monchengladbach and perhaps even Barcelona -- the first leg might well have been enough to end their hopes of European glory.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of other teams who will know it is well within their ability to turn their first leg disadvantage into a spot in the quarterfinals. But which of the teams are most likely to overturn their deficit? Read on to find out:
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At Bayern Munich, trail 4-1: Considering no team has ever overcome a two-goal deficit, let alone the three-goal margin, Lazio trail Bayern Munich, and after losing the first leg at home it seems safe to put this one on ice. No team has held the reigning European champions goalless this season and in domestic and their expected goals (xG) return in Champions League fixtures has only once dropped lower than one. In other words, they will almost certainly make the chances to get one goal and then their guests need to score four at the Allianz Arena. We have seen in the Champions League before that this Lazio team can rack up the goals quickly, a fact that Borussia Dortmund can attest to after shipping three in the group stage back in October, while Bayern can be a bit leaky at home having shipped three goals on three occasions this season. Having said all of that, the holders are hosting the seventh-best team in Italy with a three-goal head start. It's hard to imagine Lazio getting much from this. | |
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At Manchester City, trail 2-0: There are teams with bigger deficits to overcome, but there are few teams you would trust with a first-leg lead quite as much as Manchester City. Their winning run might have come to a juddering halt with a 2-0 defeat to Manchester United on Sunday, but that was one of only three occasions in the Premier League and Champions League this season where they have conceded two or more goals. City's return to the summit of English football has been in no small part down to the outstanding central defensive duo of Ruben Dias and John Stones. Indeed Sunday's defeat was the first time these two have played together and Pep Guardiola's side have lost, just the second of 18 they have not won and took the goals against record of this pair to six, one every three games. With Gladbach having taken one point from seven games, a run in which they have scored four goals and had a per game xG of 0.74, it seems impossible that this tie will end in anything other than qualification for the quarter finals for Manchester City. | |
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At Paris Saint-Germain, trail 4-1: Don't get carried away by the presence of two teams before Barcelona, it is hard to believe that Ronald Koeman's side can really overcome a PSG team that outplayed them in every facet of last month's meeting. Their press was diffident, their defensive players lacking in pace and the attacking burden fell on Lionel Messi alone. However, for anyone bar PSG fans there is just a nagging sense of what might be possible for the best player in the world, no matter the supporting cast around him. Messi has been in outstanding form since the turn of the year with 14 goals in 16 games. Ousmane Dembele has stepped up in recent weeks too while Antoine Griezmann has the quality to turn a game. Meanwhile it is only natural to have doubts about PSG protecting a lead. After all, after La Remontada they became one of only two teams to blow a two-goal lead at home in the Champions League when they lost 3-1 to Manchester United. If they can let that advantage slip, is it so impossible to imagine them giving up a slightly bigger lead? Not necessarily, but Barcelona probably don't have much to fall back on other than the hope that if they nick an early goal the French champions might start fearing the worst again. | |
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At Borussia Dortmund, trail 3-2: The first leg of this tie saw an in-form Sevilla being described as dark horses for the whole tournament welcome Borussia Dortmund to Andalusia with the Germans in woeful form. Erling Haaland's brace may have swung the campaign for both teams. Sevilla have won one of four since losing at home -- admittedly two of those games were defeats to Barcelona -- while the only game Dortmund have not won post-Champions League was a 4-2 loss to Bayern Munich that remained in the balance until the 88th minute. With the German giants on the up this might be a more comfortable passage to the quarter-finals than the tie's scoreline suggests. | |
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At Liverpool, trail 2-0: Now we are in the realms of outcomes that feel genuinely possible. It is worth taking a moment to reflect on how incredible that ought to be, that the 2019 European champions and reigning Premier League winners could credibly throw away a two-goal lead in a nominal home game, albeit one that will take place in Budapest as the first leg did. It is perhaps a cause for relief that Liverpool get away from Anfield, a ground where they set a new record for most successive defeats by a reigning English title holder in Sunday's 1-0 loss against Fulham, a match where they seemed utterly incapable of even imaging themselves putting the ball in the net. Jurgen Klopp seemed to be hoping in the aftermath of that defeat that the change of scenery might bring something to freshen up his team, saying: "Thank God it is a different competition."  It is, however, an opponent that showed no signs of being blown off course by their defeat in the first leg. Since then RB Leipzig have won four straight, in three of those games scoring the three goals they would need to secure qualification with penalties. Yussuf Poulsen, Alexander Sorloth and Christopher Nkunku are all in the rich goalscoring form, giving Julian Nagelsmann the sort of attacking weapons needed to pick up a shock result. In all likelihood Liverpool's two-goal cushion ought to be enough but this could well be a nervy tie. | |
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At Real Madrid, trail 1-0: Remo Freuler's early red card meant we never really saw what might have been if these two teams had been at full numbers and ultimately Atalanta's hesitance over conceding multiple away goals meant they played their first leg with one eye on their trip to the Santiago Bernabeu. To their credit they remain emphatically in the tie even if Ferland Mendy's late strike would have been cause for no little disappointment in Bergamo. Equally, the Spaniards ought to be far more effective in the second leg, where as it stands they will be able to deploy an actual striker in Karim Benzema rather than Isco performing admirably but uncomfortable as something akin to a roving playmaker. Madrid have not been at their best of late, but they still show their typical fighting quality that ultimately makes it hard to bet against them. Against Real Sociedad Vinicius Junior earned them a draw in the 89th minute before Benzema did the same in the Madrid derby a week later. | |
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At Chelsea, trail 1-0: If Atleti put in the same performance they did in the first leg then we can send them tumbling down to the lower reaches of these rankings. Diego Simeone's side were woefully passive even after Olivier Giroud's wonder goal, seemingly playing to deny Chelsea an away goal. If any team was going to produce the perfect defensive performance required for a shut out then it was probably this one but they left themselves so little margin for error by almost refusing to attack for the last two-thirds of the game. What was all the more curious was that last month's display was not the Atletico Madrid we have seen for much of this season, one where they are a more attacking force than in past seasons with the highest expected goals per game in La Liga since 2013-14. Joao Felix, Marcos Llorente and Angel Correa can all ease the goalscoring burden on Luis Suarez. There is the quality in this team to swing the tie in Los Rojiblancos direction.  Equally, this Chelsea team are ideally suited to holding a lead. They do not give up possession easily, they defend in numbers and as we noted before their win over Liverpool they make it exceptionally difficult for teams to get into good positions in their penalty area. If Thomas Tuchel opts to repeat the Timo Werner-led gameplan that got him success at Anfield he may well get the goal he needs to kill this tie. | |
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Home vs. Porto, trail 2-1: Perhaps the only one of these ties where you might argue that the team trailing from the first leg are the favorites to get through. Federico Chiesa's 82nd minute goal radically altered the complexion of these games and Juventus welcome Porto to Turin knowing a 1-0 win or any victory by a margin of two-plus goals will take them through. However, a word of caution is necessary when it comes to predicting how Juventus will fare in the Champions League. Chiesa's goal was the first knockout round goal anyone other than Ronaldo had scored for this team in nearly three years; the Bianconeri may have signed the former Real Madrid forward to address their lack of killer instinct in the latter stages of Europe, but ultimately all they seem to have done is handed over sole responsibility for their success in the competition that matters most to them to one man. If Porto can quell Ronaldo, they have a chance, but this season that might be easier said than done. Both domestically and in Europe, he is scoring at his fastest rate since leaving Spain and is doing so from fewer shots. This season 25 percent of his shots in the box have ended up in goals, the second-best record of his career bettered only by the 2013-14 campaign. Because he is in such rich form and because this might just be his competition it's hard to not see him doing enough to take Juventus into the last eight. | |
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