After a wild night in the UEFA Champions League, the competition is gearing up for what promises to be more scintillating action as Matchday 3 continues tonight. Paris Saint-Germain currently tops the table on nine points after throttling Bayer Leverkusen, 7-2, ahead of Inter Milan and Arsenal on goal difference.
Real Madrid has a chance to join that trio with three wins from three if it can beat Italian side Juventus. The match will start at 3 p.m. ET (9 p.m. local) at the Bernabéu.
Los Blancos are -220 favorites to win and +380 to draw at DraftKings Sportsbook, while La Vecchia Signora is +550.
Real Madrid vs. Juventus prediction, pick
Real Madrid is off to a tremendous start in the Xabi Alonso era, sitting atop the La Liga table with 24 points through eight matches and winning each of its first two Champions League matches. Kylian Mbappé seems dead-set on proving that he’s the world’s best player in his second season with Los Blancos, smashing home 10 goals in nine games to lead the La Liga scorer’s table by four. He’s gotten plenty of support: Vinicius Júnior has recorded nine goal contributions of his own, and Turkish wunderkind Arda Güler has three goals and four assists. Despite some injuries in the back — Trent Alexander-Arnold, David Alaba, Éder Militão, Dean Huijsen, and Dani Carvajal have all missed time — Madrid has allowed the second-fewest goals in La Liga and just one in two Champions League matches. Thibaut Courtois hasn’t even had a great season, saving just 69.6% of his opportunities, but it’s hardly mattered. Federico Valverde has done just fine as a right back.
Juventus is slumping, as it is winless since September 13. After a 3-0 start in Serie A, La Vecchia Signora drew to Hellas Verona, Atalanta, and AC Milan in the league and Borussia Dortmund and Villarreal in the Champions League before losing its first game of the season, to Como. On paper, that’s not a particularly easy schedule — AC Milan tops the table, and Como sits sixth and Atalanta eighth, while Dortmund and Villarreal are in the top four in their respective leagues — but it’s certainly not up to Juve’s typical standard. Only Dušan Vlahović has scored multiple goals this season, and only Kenan Yıldız and Gleison Bremer have recorded multiple assists. Through seven games, La Vecchia Signora has arguably out-performed its expectations, as it has just the 10th-highest expected goal differential in Serie A. Juventus has produced the lowest-quality shots in the division while also allowing the lowest-quality shots.
If Michele Di Gregorio has already allowed seven goals from 6.9 post-shot expected goals on a lot of low-quality efforts, I shudder to think of his performance against a healthy Real Madrid front three. Mbappé alone has five of the team’s seven goals so far in the Champions League, converting a pair of penalties in the win over Marseille and banging home a hat trick in a 5-0 thrashing of Kairat Almaty in Kazakhstan. The French superstar has already generated 1.9 non-penalty expected goals’ worth of shots on his own, and Vinicius, Güler, and Franco Mastantuono are all knocking on the precipice of their first goal in the competition. Los Blancos don’t even need Jude Bellingham to win this one, but his presence allows them to slide Valverde and/or Eduardo Camavinga back for more help in the defense. With him, they’ll win comfortably in a high-scoring affair.
