Liverpool vs Real Madrid Prediction | Opta Analyst
We look ahead to Wednesday’s huge UEFA Champions League game at Anfield with our Liverpool vs Real Madrid prediction and preview. Can the Reds maintain their 100% record?
The introduction of the UEFA Champions League‘s 36-team league phase was intended to give fans more matchups between Europe’s finest, and Wednesday’s clash at Anfield certainly fits that bill.
Liverpool – the only team to have won all four of their games in the 2024-25 competition – take on reigning champions Real Madrid in perhaps the biggest game of this season’s Champions League to date.
Arne Slot’s reign at Anfield could hardly have started any better, with Sunday’s 3-2 comeback win at Southampton sending them eight points clear at the Premier League summit and seeing the Opta supercomputer install them as commanding favourites for the title. They also boast the Champions League’s only perfect record through four games, having seen off Milan, Bologna, RB Leipzig and Bayer Leverkusen.
Heading into Matchday 5, Liverpool are favourites to win the Champions League with the Opta supercomputer, doing so in 16% of simulations.
Only once have Liverpool enjoyed a better 100% start to a campaign in a major European competition, winning their first seven Champions League matches in 2021-22, when they finished as runners-up to Real Madrid.
The Reds may again be reliant on Mohamed Salah, who netted twice versus Southampton on Sunday and has now contributed to 66.7% of their Premier League goals this season (10 goals, 6 assists). The Egyptian has also provided at least one assist in each of his last three Champions League matches.
While Salah’s tendency to drift infield from the right is well-known, he has also been adept at creating from wide areas this campaign. Liverpool have scored more of their goals from crosses (five of 10) in the Champions League this season than any other team, with their last three such strikes all being assisted by Salah.
Slot has preached the importance of control since taking over from Jürgen Klopp, but Liverpool’s press remains ferocious and could be key on another big European night at Anfield. Ryan Gravenberch has played a key role on that front, recovering possession more often in the Champions League than any other central midfielder this season (30 times), while also managing the highest pass completion rate (93%) of any Liverpool player.
They thrashed Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen 4-0 on MD 4, but Slot’s men may be preparing for their toughest test yet when 15-time European champions Real Madrid come to town.
Carlo Ancelotti’s side warmed up for their trip to Merseyside by beating Leganés 3-0 in La Liga on Sunday, but did suffer a major blow with Vinícius Júnior sustaining a hamstring injury that will rule him out of Wednesday’s match. Across all competitions this season, Vinícius has at least seven more goal involvements than any other Madrid player (12 goals, 6 assists), while also creating a team-high 43 chances.
However, Los Blancos have coped well without Vinícius in the past. Since the start of last season, they have won 41 of 57 games across all competitions with the Brazilian appearing (71.9%), but have won 75% of matches (12 of 16) when he’s been absent. Madrid have also scored marginally more goals per game (2.4 to 2.3) without the winger.
Though Real Madrid are always expected to challenge on the European front, they are under pressure to get a result on Wednesday, languishing in 18th in the standings with just six points from four games ahead of their trip to Anfield.
They went down 3-1 to Milan at the Santiago Bernabéu on MD 4 and have lost two of their last three Champions League matches (W1), as many as in their previous 28 (W20 D6).
If they are to halt that streak, Mbappé could have a key role to play. The Frenchman has scored 49 goals in 77 Champions League games and has the chance to become the fourth-quickest player to 50 goals in the competition, behind Ruud van Nistelrooy (62 appearances), Lionel Messi (66) and Robert Lewandowski (77).
Liverpool vs Real Madrid Head-to-HeadReal Madrid are the team who Liverpool have lost most often against in European competition, beaten by Los Blancos seven times, including heartbreaking Champions League final losses in 2018 and 2022.
The teams last faced off in the round of 16 in 2022-23, when Madrid trounced Liverpool 5-2 at Anfield before sealing qualification with a 1-0 home win.
That away triumph made Madrid the first team in Champions League history to go two goals down but recover to win by a three-goal margin, as well as the first visitors to net five times at Anfield in a European fixture.
Despite Real Madrid’s fine record against Liverpool, Slot’s Reds are favourites for this one.
Of 10,000 match simulations conducted by the Opta supercomputer, Liverpool triumphed in 46.8% and were beaten in 28.9%, with 24.3% of scenarios seeing the points shared.
Ahead of MD 4, the supercomputer assigned Liverpool a 49.8% chance of topping the table, with second favourites Inter way down on 14%. Madrid only top the pile in 0.1% of projections, with 16th and 17th (both 6.2%) their most common finishing positions.
That would leave them requiring the play-off round to advance to the last 16, for which they face a battle to be seeded. Their hopes of skipping the play-offs with a top-eight finish are rated at a lowly 15.7%.
Liverpool vs Real Madrid Predicted Lineups Opta Power RankingsThe Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Wednesday, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Liverpool vs Real Madrid SquadsLiverpool: Alisson Becker, Caoimhín Kelleher, Joe Gomez, Virgil van Dijk, Ibrahima Konaté, Kostas Tsimikas, Andrew Robertson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Jarell Quansah, Conor Bradley, Wataru Endo, Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister, Curtis Jones, Harvey Elliott, Ryan Gravenberch, Luis Díaz, Darwin Núñez, Mohamed Salah, Federico Chiesa, Cody Gakpo, Diogo Jota.
Head Coach: Arne Slot
Real Madrid: Thibaut Courtois, Andriy Lunin, Sergio Mestre, Dani Carvajal,Éder Militão, David Alaba, Jesús Vallejo, Fran Garcia, Antonio Rüdiger, Ferland Mendy, Jude Bellingham, Eduardo Camavinga, Federico Valverde, Luka Modrić, Aurélien Tchouaméni,Arda Güler, Lucas Vázquez, Dani Ceballos, Brahim Díaz, Vinícius Júnior, Kylian Mbappé, Rodrygo, Endrick.
Head Coach: Carlo Ancelotti
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