{"id":5454,"date":"2019-04-30T12:55:04","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T12:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/?p=5454"},"modified":"2019-05-01T01:29:36","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T01:29:36","slug":"barcelona-and-liverpool-meet-in-champions-league-semifinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/sports\/barcelona-and-liverpool-meet-in-champions-league-semifinals\/","title":{"rendered":"Barcelona and Liverpool Meet In Champions League Semifinals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Liverpool definitely has their hands full over the next week. On Wednesday, they begin the Champions League Semifinals against Barcelona at Estadio Camp Nou<\/em>. They’ll then return to England for a game against Newcastle United at St. James’ Park on Saturday. Next Tuesday, they’ll welcome Barca to Anfield for the second leg of the Champions League Semifinals. They’ll then conclude the English Premier League season on Sunday, May 12 as they host Wolverhampton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only is Liverpool in the mix in the Champions League they’re hoping for a Manchester City misstep that would open the door for them to claim the English Premier League Championship. They currently trail Manchester City by a single point but do not control their own destiny. If both teams win out, Manchester City will win their second straight Premiership crown by the slimmest of margins. Manchester City has a very ‘winnable’ schedule remaining as they host middle of the table Leicester City and travel to play at Brighton. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Reds will face a Barcelona team that has no concerns in Spanish league play. They’ve all but locked up the Primera Division title and currently enjoy a 9 point edge over second place Atletico Madrid. Barcelona has three Primera Division contests remaining as well as the Copa del Rey <\/em>against Valencia on May 25. The conventional wisdom is that this Barcelona team doesn’t rank among the best of the past decade or so but their performance on the field suggests otherwise. Barcelona has not reached the Champions League Semis since 2015 so combined with the Copa del Rey finals and Primera Division league crown they’ve had an impressive season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barca has been very good form in all competitions and all settings and will be a formidable adversary for Liverpool in this round. They are unbeaten in their last 10 Champions League contests overall. They’ve been particularly strong in this setting and are unbeaten in 31 Champions League games at Nou Camp with 9 wins in their last 10 matches. They’re also unbeaten in 22 games in all competitions, winning 13 of their last 15. They’ve also won 8 straight at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liverpool has managed to make it to the semifinals in this competition but it hasn’t been an easy road. In fact, the road was a real issue for the Reds earlier in this competition and at one point they had lost four straight away games in Champions League play but they’ve been a little better of late with wins at Bayern Munich and Porto. Their recent form, however, has been very strong. They’ve been pushed by Manchester City at home and have won 10 straight in all competitions. They’ve also won 5 straight away in all competitions scoring two or more goals in each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The big injury question for the game concerns the fitness of Roberto Firmino. He was injured in the April 21 game against Cardiff City but has returned to training and according to Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp is essentially a ‘game time decision’. The Champions League betting odds<\/a> are somewhat curious as they appear to undervalue this quality Liverpool side. This game–and this semifinal matchup–looks to be dead even so we’ll look elsewhere for a betting position. Both teams have been in good offensive form of late and both games in the semifinal set should see some scoring. We’ll bet it accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BET BARCELONA\/LIVERPOOL OVER 2.5, 3 -112
BET BARCELONA\/LIVERPOOL BOTH TEAMS TO SCORE -170<\/strong>

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liverpool definitely has their hands full over the next week. On Wednesday, they begin the Champions League Semifinals against Barcelona…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":5455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5456,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5454\/revisions\/5456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}