AS ROMA v PORTO
Tuesday 23rd August 2016 – Kickoff: 2045hrs
Football – Europe – Champions League Betting Tips
AS Roma will have considered it job done in last week’s first leg 1-1 draw in Portugal when they held Porto in this the pick of the Champions League play-off ties with both teams still in with a shout of reaching the group stages of this competition.
Roma backed up this great result with a thumping 4-0 home win over Udinese in the Italian Serie A season-opener at their Stadio Olimpico, and they’ll be looking to continue this momentum into Tuesday night’s clash on home turf against Porto here tonight.
Roma are now unbeaten in their last seven matches overall with recent wins gained against Liverpool, Montreal Impact and Latina in pre-season warm-up games, but they’ve only done half a job against Porto so far, so I’m expecting them to focus in this one.
Onto Porto and they too come into this clash on the back of an impressive seven-game unbeaten run which includes recent wins against Vitoria Guimaraes, Villarreal, Rio Ave and Estoril but they are without a win in their last three at this level as they’ve suffered losses to Dynamo Kiev and Chelsea along with last week’s draw with Roma in the first leg.
Recent form in this competition has seen Porto return some mixed results away from home in the Champions League as they registered a 3-1 win away at Maccabi Tel Aviv but also lose at Bayern Munich (in a heavy 6-1 defeat) as well as Chelsea.
My colleague Callum has come up with a fair shout of both teams scoring here this evening, but with strikers such as Dzeko and El Shaarawy for the hosts, along with that Italian ‘know-how’ of winning crucial games, I’ll back the hosts to just about squeeze through here.
Could be a 2-1 win for Roma.
Pick: Roma to win @ 1.73 bet365
