We said: Manchester City 2-2 Real Madrid
Defensive uncertainties and absentees on both sides should have both revered managers feeling confident of gleaning a first-leg advantage at the Etihad, with Benzema and Vinicius capable of plucking goals out of nowhere for the visitors.
However, City will need no second invitation to break down a depleted Blancos backline in front of their own crowd, and we expect an end-to-end first leg with plenty of goalmouth action to end all square.
Read more.Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Manchester City win with a probability of 43.14%. A win for Real Madrid had a probability of 36.49% and a draw had a probability of 20.4%.
The most likely scoreline for a Manchester City win was 2-1 with a probability of 7.44%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 3-1 (5.29%) and 3-2 (5.19%). The likeliest Real Madrid win was 1-2 (6.83%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 2-2 (7.29%). The actual scoreline of 4-3 was predicted with a 1.8% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Manchester City would win this match.
