The unexpected turn of the Champions League

THEY SUDDENLY MOVED ON

Immediately after the quarter-finals ended, the supercomputer of the famous statistics company Opta gave the following probability of winning the Champions League for the last 4 teams: Real Madrid (39.31%), PSG (27.41%), Bayern Munich (16.90%), Borussia Dortmund (16.38%). All of this is for reference only, of course.

Will PSG (right) become this year's Champions League champion?

By the way, let’s see how Opta predicted the teams’ chances of making it to the semi-finals on April 15, just before the four second-leg quarter-final matches. The individual matches are: Man.City (64.9%) - Real Madrid (35.1%); Barcelona (76.5%) - PSG (23.5%); Bayern Munich (52%) - Arsenal (48%) and Borussia Dortmund (35%) - Atletico Madrid (65%). Only Bayern - Arsenal is almost evenly matched, and that is the only match where Opta’s statistics come into play. The other three matches are completely lopsided. And strangely enough, in those supposedly lopsided matches, the teams that were considered to be the weaker sides ended up making it to the semi-finals!

The statistics of the major bookmakers and the odds always lead to reasonable predictions… before the match ends. For example, Bayern Munich is of course superior in every way to the remaining representative of the Bundesliga, Borussia Dortmund. But the possibility of Bayern and Dortmund winning the Champions League is almost equal, because Bayern must first face Real Madrid, while Dortmund's opponent in the semi-finals is "only" PSG. According to Opta's data, the winning probability of each team in the semi-finals is: Bayern (33.67%) - Real (66.33%) and Dortmund (40.39%) - PSG (59.61%).

England clean in Champions League semi-finals when Real Madrid is too stubborn

C. TACTICS AND DECISIVENESS

What can be expected in the near future: the upcoming semi-finals will be very tactical, and when it comes to tactics in top football, it is impossible to separate the two accompanying factors: discipline and spirit. In the quarter-finals, all four teams defeated their opponents (who, as mentioned, were highly rated opponents) with the above factors. In a way, it can be understood that tactics, discipline and spirit have won over the philosophy of the coach and the talent of the players. Arsenal, with a very evenly matched squad of stars and a deep impression of the philosophy of coach Mikel Arteta, failed to materialize their advantage when they only drew with Bayern in the first leg at home. And in the second leg, as coach Arteta himself admitted, Arsenal were punished by a moment of mental concentration loss.

Bayern Munich is happy

When it comes to philosophy, of course, no one is more famous than Pep Guardiola. But Pep's Man.City, with 67.3% possession and 33 shots, could not beat Real Madrid, who were typically defending outside their own penalty area (Real only shot the ball 8 times in 120 minutes). That was never the familiar Real, who always kept the ball a lot in their La Liga arena. But Real cannot just play like they do in La Liga, when their opponent is Man.City. The right tactics for the match situation and the specific opponent is the most important thing to help Real eliminate the team that is always considered the number 1 candidate for the championship. Next is the spirit. Even when Luka Modric missed the first penalty, the reaction of Real and Modric himself still exuded their superior spirit.

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