Uefa Champions League Matchday 4 Preview And Prediction
The 2023/24 UEFA Champions League group stage has reached its midway point. On Matchday 4, stay abreast of the fixtures that are still to come as the best gear up for the ultimate stage.
Liverpool vs Bayer Leverkusen Preview
Alonso spent five years at Liverpool as a player, helping them to win one of the most iconic finals in UEFA Champions League history when they beat Milan on penalties in 2005.
Nineteen years later, he returns to Anfield as an opposition manager, leading Bayer Leverkusen in the very same competition.
Leverkusen have only won one of their 11 away major European matches in England (D3 L7), beating Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 in November 2016, while they lost both their previous two visits to Anfield.
Alonso’s Leverkusen is a different beast to their predecessors, though, becoming the first iteration to win the club a Bundesliga title last season, doing so undefeated, and making a strong start to their Champions League campaign.
Leverkusen began with a thumping 4-0 win at Feyenoord – the former club of Liverpool head coach Arne Slot – and followed that up with a 1-0 home win against Milan, though they were held to a 1-1 draw at Brest on Matchday 3 of the league phase.
Liverpool have only lost once in their last 21 European meetings with German opponents (W14 D6), though that one defeat was against Leverkusen in 2002. They are unbeaten in 13 games vs Bundesliga opposition since then (W10 D3).
The Reds have been ahead on the scoreboard for longer than any other team in the Champions League this season (213:47), leading for 73% of their total match time. However, Leverkusen is only six teams to have not been behind at any point in the 2024-25 edition.
Liverpool vs Bayer Leverkusen Head-to-Head
This will be the fifth meeting between Liverpool and Leverkusen, and the first since 2005.
Three years earlier, the Germans overturned a 1-0 deficit from their quarter-final first leg at Anfield to win 4-2 in the BayArena en route to the 2002 Champions League final.
Liverpool got their revenge in 2005, though, beating Leverkusen 3-1 at home and by the same score away in the last 16. Alonso was a Liverpool player at the time but didn’t feature in either game due to injury.
It bodes well for the winner of this game that the team who ultimately won their prior meetings in this competition went on to reach the final that year.
PREDICTION: BOTH TEAMS TO SCORE @1.48
Borussia Dortmund vs Sturm Graz: OVER 2.5 @1.30
Celtic vs RB Leipzig: OVER 1.5 @1.20
Real Madrid vs Milan: OVER 2.5 @1.47
Sporting Clube de Portugal vs Manchester City: 2 DNB @1.35
Bayern Munich vs Benfica: HOME WIN @1.28
Crvena Zvezda vs Barcelona: OVER 2.5 @1.20
Internazionale Milano vs Arsenal: HOME WIN OR DRAW @1.41
Paris Saint-Germain vs Atletico Madrid: 1 DNB @1.28
