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It’s been a dream start to the Hansi Flick era at Barcelona.
The Catalan giants have won nine of their first 10 matches in La Liga, they are scoring goals for fun and the club’s next generation of stars, which includes the likes of Lamine Yamal, Gavi and Marc Casado, are playing brilliantly.
But what will determine if this season is a success or not isn’t the team’s form domestically, but rather if Flick can get Barcelona to make its first deep run in the Champions League since it was a semifinalist in 2018-19.
In that regard, there are still some questions to answer.
Barcelona is just 1-0-1 (W-D-L) in the Champions League through two matches and now faces the daunting task of welcoming Bayern Munich to Camp Nou on Wednesday night.
It will be the toughest test of the season for Barcelona by a long shot.
As well as Barcelona has played in La Liga, you can certainly call into question the strength of its schedule.
The toughest opponent they’ve faced so far was Athletic Bilbao and that was the second match of the campaign.
That said, the numbers Barca are putting up are imperious. They’re averaging 3.3 goals per game in Spain and have the third-best expected goals difference per 90 minutes in any of Europe’s big five leagues.
One of the teams that has a superior xGD/90 is Bayern Munich, however, and it’s the defensive work that Bayern is doing right now that brings us to our bet for this match.
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While Barcelona has been able to run riot over some mediocre teams in La Liga, the same won’t be true of Bayern Munich.
There is every chance that Bayern’s defensive fortitude turns this into a tightly played contest that never gets going.
Most folks will expect fireworks when Bayern Munich travels to Barcelona, but the best value on the board is to zag that narrative and back this to end in a draw.
THE PLAY: Draw (+280, FanDuel)
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Michael Leboff handicaps the EPL, NHL, golf and anything else that isn’t the NFL and NBA for the NY Post. He’s up 49.73 units betting EPL with a 7.17% ROI.