UEFA Champions League: Club Brugge vs. Bayer Leverkusen Preview, Odds, Prediction

Club Brugge meets with Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday night in the UCL opener. The Belgian champions want to continue their streak of excellent performances and post another triumph. As for the guests, they are in a terrible situation, falling apart and playing beneath any decent level. The transfer window and interest for their players seemed to ruin the chemistry in the locker room, but we will talk more about that in the following few lines.

Preview

Club Brugge (+210) has eight games played this year, winning six of them with one draw and loss each. The hosts were in superb shape before this event, having posted four triumphs.

The Belgian champs kept clean sheets in three of them, while on the other side, netting three goals at least in the same number of contests. For the moment, they really look dominant in the Jupiler League and without decent competition.

The majority of Brugges’ events are efficient, meaning with three or more goals, and that’s because this team has had the same system on the field in the last several years. They always have quick forwards, one target man in the middle, and a very fluid midfield, quick transition. Also, this club constantly has very talented players who later become stars in the transfer window.

Bayer Leverkusen (+110) has numerous offers for its players during the transfer window, some of them exceeding $60 or $70 million. A few players expected to leave the team and join some bigger organizations, yet that didn’t happen, which could be why Leverkusen plays this badly.

In five Bundesliga games, Leverkusen won only one, and lost all others, the most recent at home to Freiburg, 2-3. Before all this started, they were eliminated in the DFB Pokal to Elversberg, the lower-tier team, 4-3.

Bayer’s defense is non-existent, with them allowing a goal in all but one event, while in four, they conceded two or more. The attack isn’t justifying the hype surrounding it, often failing to show up at all. Schik, Hlozek Diaby, all of them are struggling. Leverkusen was supposed to be one of Bayern’s potential challengers with the team they have now, but the way they play, that won’t happen.

Latest News

The hosts are without Buchanan and Rits, who are both injured.

Bayer won’t have Adil, Bellarabi, Lunev, and Wirtz, all injured as well.

Head to Head

There was a friendly game in 2011 when Brugge defeated Bayer, 2-1. Previously these two sides met in the Europa League in 2006, with that game finishing without winners, 1-1. Back then, there was only one game played in group against four different rivals.

Prediction

Brugge and Leverkusen are both offensive-minded crews with much better players in the offense than in the defense. We believe this game should bring goals, preferably on both ends, which is why we pick both teams to score and over 2.5. The odds on that are currently at -125, which is in our opinion, a pick with a high value. For those willing to take extra risk, we propose to bet on over 1.5 HT.

Pick: Both teams to score and over 2.5 goals -125