Champions League: Juventus Must Tame Lyon

Juventus vs Lyon

With the Scudetto in the bag, Juventus now turn their attention to the Champions League when Olympique Lyonnais visit the Juventus Stadium on Friday.

The French side arrives in Turin with a one-goal lead, and after keeping a clean sheet in the first leg at the Groupama Stadium, they will look for a priceless away goal to make Juve’s job even more difficult.

The Old Lady will hope Lyon are undercooked after the Ligue 1 season was abandoned in April, and OL head coach Rudi Garcia has a tough task to ensure his side is match fit.

The latest Juventus vs Lyon betting odds have faith in the hosts, backing them at odds of 1.80 to progress through to the quarter-final with Lyon at 2.06.

Talking Points

Time for the Old Lady to wake up

Maurizio Sarri’s team are sixth favourites to win this season’s Champions League at odds of 11.00, but if they can overturn this deficit on Friday the odds will fall.

I Bianconeri have been rather uninspiring in recent weeks despite winning a ninth successive Scudetto. They lost tamely to Roma in their final game in a run of three defeats from their final four games, including losses to lower mid-table sides Cagliari and Udinese.

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Lyon will pose a bigger threat than those two teams which finished 13th and 14th in Serie A. But surely the Old Lady will rise to this challenge. You won’t keep Cristiano Ronaldo out of the Champions League 2020 news for long and he will be determined to grab yet more headlines on Friday night.

He’s been in scintillating form again this season, scoring a colossal 31 league goals, bettered only by Capocannoniere winner Ciro Immobile. And Paulo Dybala (11 goals) has a point to prove after an inconsistent season.

With Leonardo Bonucci and Matthijs de Ligt at the heart of Juve’s defence, they will be confident of a shut-out. But if Juventus are to go all the way in this competition there are some teams in spectacular form to beat along the way.

FC Bayern and Manchester City have been eye-catching in their domestic leagues and are SBOBET Champions League favourites to lift the 2020 title.

Memphis stars for OL

Lyon’s biggest threat comes in the shape of former Manchester United player Memphis Depay. The Dutch winger has five goals in the competition and is on the radar of some top clubs after a strong European campaign.

He only managed 13 Ligue 1 games as the domestic season was curtailed, but with OL finishing seventh they have failed to qualify for Europe next season and that might tempt Depay to move.

OL are taking legal action against the league, but should that fail, and the French club bows out of the Champions League, then ears will prick up at both Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal.

BVB are making contingency plans to cover the potential loss of Jadon Sancho, while winger Depay is also a target for Arsenal, should the Gunners lose Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang or Alexandre Lacazette in the summer.

The price tag will be around £40m should Depay move, but in the meantime he will be fully focussed on pushing Lyon towards an unlikely bid for European glory.

Champions League: Memphis Depay says Lyon head into Turin fearless of Juve — Lyon’s Memphis Depay in action with Paris St Germain’s Presnel Kimpembe

The underdogs will be dangerous; while they ended their season with two defeats, those were preceded by back-to-back wins over Juventus and Coupe de France finalists Saint-Etienne.

History

Juventus are twice winners of Europe’s premier competition, but the Old Lady’s last triumph was in 1996. Although, she came very close in recent seasons, losing in the 2015 final to Barcelona and then the 2017 final to Real Madrid.

Lyon’s best progress in the Champions League came in a semi-final appearance in 2010. They are seven times winner of Ligue 1, all between 2002 and 2008 during the club’s golden period.

Juve have won four of the six meetings between these two teams and drawn one, with the sole defeat coming in the first leg defeat when Lucas Tousart converted Houssem Aouar’s cross to score the only goal of the game. Dybala had a late effort ruled out for offside but, aside from that, Juventus failed to register a single shot on target.

Betting Tip

	Juventus vs Lyon	First Half 1X2 Juventus @ 2.03
	August 08, 03:00 (GMT+8)

This is a dangerous game against a Lyon side which is hard to predict, but surely Juventus will be back to their best for their first competitive game since they won the Scudetto with a win over Sampdoria. Back to back defeats since then will mean nothing if they can overturn this tie and they will hope to catch Lyon cold.

Juventus is at 1.43 to win the match, with the draw at 4.26 and Lyon at odds of 6.12. A score-line of 2-0 at 6.56 will do the job for I Bianconeri and I think they will be ahead by the break.