The best time of year for footy fans is back as the Champions League returns this week for the 2022/23 version of Europe’s biggest club tournament. Europe’s biggest clubs set to do battle yet again for the most prestigious trophy in the game and giving bettors exciting midweek action. Tuesday’s opening slate of group stage matches features a blockbuster of two Champions League giants who have yet to lift the Champions League trophy in PSG vs Juventus.
Despite the two sides consistently featuring in the Champions League, this is the first time Juventus and PSG will face off in Europe since 1996. Their group stage opener is an affair of familiar clubs who are complete strangers to competing against one another in the competition.
PSG enter the match as the overwhelming soccer betting favorites, listed at -300 odds in the moneyline market. Juventus will play the rare role as underdogs as the visitors in Paris, oddsmakers listing them at +700 odds to win the match and as +1.5 underdogs in the Asian Handicap market.
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Old Lady Showing Cracks In Attack
Juventus’ form entering the Champions League has expectations low that this will be the year the club ends their heartbreak in the competition. Through five league matches in Serie A, Juventus has failed to win more often than they have dropped points with two wins and three draws. That has put the usual champions, or at minimum title contenders, down in seventh place after the first month of the season.
Finding the back of the net has been the key issue for Juve. In their three draws, their attack failed to score more than a single goal and put too much pressure on their defense to keep a clean sheet in order to secure the full three points. The summer departure of Paulo Dybala removed some of their scoring consistency as strikers Arkadiusz Milik and Dušan Vlahović get comfortable in a new setup.
Lacking an attacking punch will be an issue against PSG, who are sure to find the back of the net with their high flying superstar attack. The best way to counter PSG is to expose the fact they are heavy in attack, so if Juve are to pull off the upset they need to find the back of the net at least once, if not twice to come out with some points. Conceding just two goals in Serie A play this season, the attack just needs to support the stout defensive spine for Juventus to start to get better results.
PSG Running Through France Yet Again
While Juventus have struggled in a deep Serie A landscape, PSG are up to their usual dominance of Ligue 1 over in France. Thus far, only Monaco has been able to take a point off the giants of France as PSG’s attack of Mbappe, Neymar and Messi has produced 24 goals as a club with just four conceded in six games heading into this PSG vs Juventus showdown.
It is hard not to become enamored with PSG’s dominance in their league as their attacking style and lopsided victories produce great highlights every weekend. Blessed with the best attacking trio in Europe, PSG can outgun anyone on any given night and that is exactly what they will look to do to Juventus in this opening match.
PSG are dead set on achieving Champions League glory to vindicate the spending of their owners who break out the war chest during each transfer window in the hopes of lifting the European trophy. Running through their opponents in Ligue 1 is merely a warmup to their main focus on the Champions League but if their form from August in France is any indication, PSG are one of the favorites to lift the trophy this spring.
Juve To Keep It Close
Taking a look at the betting odds, Juventus +1.5 at -104 odds on the Asian Handicap market is the play that sticks out. Conceding just two goals so far this season, Juventus are well structured in defense and should frustrate PSG even with their star studded group of attackers.
I expect Juventus to find the back of the net at least once in this PSG vs Juventus match and to be able to keep PSG from pouring on the goals in a tightly contested affair. Both Juventus’ defense and PSG’s attack have yet to face an opposing force as strong as they will face in this matchup. That will make it intriguing to see which of the two dominant forces overpowers the other in this tangle of two prestigious clubs.
