Precious home win sets Chelsea up for Champions League progress
Published:Chelsea’s hard fought 1-0 win over European Champions Barcelona at Stamford Bridge has seen them move to 13/2 to lift the Champions League trophy in Munich.
Roberto Di Matteo’s side overcame the odds to defeat Pep Guradiola’s men, and most importantly for the Blues they ensured the Catalans drew a blank in front of goal, meaning they head back to Spain without a valuable away strike.
The Blaugrana still remain 6/5 favourites to retain the trophy for the first time in the Champions League era, and poor finishing let them down as the likes of Cesc Fabregas and Sergio Busquets wasted guilt-edged chances.
The Pensioners will be buoyed by the fact that Barca have never qualified for the final of this competition after losing the first leg of the semi-final.
Guardiola’s side have also failed to beat Chelsea in their last three attempts at the Camp Nou, and with four of the last five prior to the Stamford Bridge clash ending in a draw, incidentally a result that would see the London club through, then odds of 13/8 for an English club to be in the final look inviting.
However, Barca have been lethal at home this season and it is clear why they are 4/9 to progress; they haven’t lost a game in Cataluna this campaign and have only conceded four goals at home in Europe, three of those were scored by Milan, the other coming in the 7-1 demolition of Bayer Leverkusen.
The last time these two met at this stage it was a last minute strike by the away side in a 1-1 draw that settled the tie, the visitors will need a super-human performance and a huge slice of luck, but any punters feeling karma may prevail can get that scorline at 8/1.
Barca to be leading at half-time and the Londoners to claim a famous draw is also a very tempting 22/1.
