CSKA Moscow Real Madrid Odds : Real to win in the snow of Champions League
CSKA Moscow and Real Madrid go head to head in the first-leg of their last 16 Champions League tie on Tuesday with both teams looking to take valuable advantage into the second game.
As AC Milan proved last week – they hammered Arsenal 4-0 at the San Siro – that you really can get one foot into the next round after the first-leg and this will be the aim of CSKA Moscow and Real Madrid.
The home side in particular will want to get a positive result on Tuesday evening. If they are to progress against a team as strong as Madrid, you get the feeling that they are going to have to win in front of their home fans.
This is something they have done on many occasions of course. Not many teams enjoy travelling to Moscow and they will look to intimidate their Spanish opponents on Tuesday.
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Having said that, they did lose on home soil to Inter Milan and Lille during the group stages and have actually lost three of their last four European matches at Arena Khimki.
Leonid Slutsky’s men have also not played competitive football for two months as the Russian league is in the middle of its off-season at the moment. As ever, they could mean they are fresh, but it could also mean they are under-cooked.
As for Madrid, they certainly don’t have a problem with being under-cooked for this fixture. Jose Mourinho’s men are in fine form at the moment – they have won their last four domestic games – and they return to the Champions League as league leaders in La Liga.
They were also undefeated throughout the group stages of this year’s competition and are without doubt one of the favourites to go all the way. In fact their performance in Group D was the best in Champions League history.
They are a team that appear to have it all to succeed in Europe too. They have kept five clean sheets in their last European games, while going forward they have Cristiano Ronaldo leading an attack that has scored 79 goals in 23 La Liga games this season.
CSKA haven’t lost to a Spanish team in European competition though, so this should be a fascinating contest in conditions that will no doubt suit the home side.
Team news wise, CSKA have plenty of injury problems with the likes of Japanese playmaker Keisuke Honda and Chilean winger Mark Gonzalez ruled out. Madrid have some absentees too, including Hamit Altintop, Angel Di Maria and Lassana Diarra.
