As the Euro soccer season moves along this coming Wednesday the 24th of February we have another Champions League UEFA Round 16-1st Leg with FC Dynamo Kiev (2nd in Ukrainian Premier League) hosting Manchester City (4th in Premier League) with the game being played at the Olympic Stadium in Kiev, Ukraine with the kick-off scheduled for 2:45 PM ET.
The Ukrainian team Dynamo Kiev returns to this tournaments knockout stage after 17 years of not achieving that. But they come into this match as underdogs at +239, and to go beyond this stage they will match-up with Manchester City a team full of talent that is seeking to end their struggling times in this Champions League Tournament.
For those that Bet on Soccer at SBG sportsbook the Man City (Manchester City) are +210 at odds of +103 on the Money Line and favorites, with the Over/under at 2.5, while the White-Blues (Dynamo Kiev) are at +239 on the Money Line, with the Draw at +210.
If you’re a fan of the White-Blues you know your team has had a 6 game win streak after their loss back on Nov. 4th 2015 to Chelsea and the victories included beating in Portugal their Porto team, and Tel-Aviv at their home field the Olympic Stadium and that finalizes their qualification out of Group G in this tournament.
Since the Ukrainian Premier League has a winter break, but will play this 1st Leg at their home. Actually their fortunate the league lifted their close door ban from 3 games to 1, thus this game will be seen by their home fans and the stadium has seating capacity of 70,000 fans that can cheer them on. That ban for 3 European games was a result of bad behavior by their fans.
In the Group stage Kiev had a draw at home against Chelsea, and in this game against Man City they will again lean on their defense, as defensively in the Group stage in 6 games they only allowed 4 goals.
Then offensively they seek for A. Yarmolenlo to lead their offensive attack, as in 14 league games he had 8 goals and in 5 Champions League games he also scored 2 goals. In these 2 teams last meeting they for competition in Europe, the Ukrainians Kiev in 2011 beat Manchester City in their home leg 2-0 and knocked Man City out of the Round 16 in that season.
If you’re a fan of the Manchester City surely you’re aware that this is the last season that manager M. Pellegrini will be at the helm of the team. His teams have struggled in the competition at this stage for the last 2 seasons in UEFA play. But we must admit that in those games both seasons they were playing Barcelona.
The team did perform well in the group stages to date as in their Group D they won 4 of 6 games to win their group, but lost both finalist games to Juventus. But on their away games they performed much better as the beat Sevilla 3 to 1 and Borussia 4 to 2 in those 2 road games.
Recently the team has had 2 big home losses consecutively against EPL rival teams, and playing this game on the road may be an advantage for Man City. In Group D their star S. Aguero was only available for 2 games because of injury, but now is back at his top form, and that could improve the team’s chances, as they need crucial away goals and Aguero in his ultimate 12 games has scored 10 goals to date.
The online betting prediction for this 1st Leg of the Round of 16 will see the Man City team overtake the Kiev’s and in this their away game they will beat Dynamo 2-1.