UEFA Champions League: Zenit vs. Lazio Preview, Odds, Prediction

A match against Lazio is the last chance for Zenit to come back into the race for the knockout stage. The guests are coming to St. Petersburg without the majority of their starters, who are have or were exposed to the risk of getting the COVID-19 virus. In the moments of writing this article, we still didn’t see the official confirmation regarding absent players, but it is already clear now that a few big names won’t play for Lazio.

Preview

Zenit (+140) is also experiencing troubles with absent players but not as big as Lazio. We will list all those who won’t appear this Wednesday later, but now, we just have to mention Sardar Asmoun, a fantastic striker who skips this event. The Iranian is indispensable for the Russians, and his absence will be felt badly.

After three straight defeats, the champions of the world’s biggest country finally won. They beat Khimki on the road, 0-2, regaining a little piece of lost confidence, and come in this event in a better state of mind than before.

Six of their previous eight matches saw a moderate efficiency, that is, two or three goals. We spotted one other pattern characteristic for this team. Only one of their eight games at home ended without scores on both sides.

Lazio (+200) comes to Moscow without numerous players who are still awaiting the results of COVID-19 virus tests. You need to understand that changes here could be massive, and that you need to follow the situation with all those players before betting.

The Eagles had a pretty dramatic encounter with Torino in Serie A this weekend. They were behind 3-2 a few minutes before the end but managed to turn the result upside down and create a shock. It was the fourth in a row for Simone Inzaghi’s unit with both teams netting.

Only one in the last five stayed under 2.5 scores, and that suggests that Inzaghi didn’t touch anything in Lazio’s style of play compared to the previous year.

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Azmoun is out for Zenit, the same as one other important player, Sebastian Driussi. Malcolm’s knee is not healed, and he too skips this match.

Now, here we have a list of players who are potentially out from this event – Ciro Immobile, Lucas Leiva, Strakosha, and Luis Alberto. The ones who are out for sure are Anderson, Escalante, goalkeeper Proto, and Radu.

Lazzari and Lulic are questionable for this event.

Head to Head Matches

Zenit and Lazio never met before this event.

Prediction

Regardless of Lazio’s lineup, we strongly believe that this match will see high efficiency. Why? Well, Zenit will attack, as they always do at home, and now the Russians have the imperative of winning behind them. If Zenit doesn’t take all three points, that will leave them at the bottom of the standings. Furthermore, it would seal their ambitions about the round of 16 in the UCL and about advancing to the Europa League.

Here you have the prediction for the match between Istanbul and Manchester United as well.