H2H: Barcelona vs. Slavia Prague – Prediction (Champions League

Preview and Teams Comparison.

Barcelona’s only previous European match against Slavia Prague was on MD3 of this campaign, winning 2-1 at the Sinobo Stadium. Barcelona’s Lionel Messi has either scored or assisted in each of his last 13 UEFA Champions League group stage starts at Camp Nou (22 goals, 7 assists), with the last time he failed to do so against Celtic in October 2012.

Unbeaten at home in the UEFA Champions League (UCL) since September 2013 (W30, D3), Barcelona are big favourites to make it three wins in a row in Group F after recording a pair of 2-1 victories in the last two rounds with each featuring the opener netted within the first five minutes. Luis Suárez’s (BAR) two UCL goals were netted after half-time – as were six of his eight competitive strikes this season. However, they did lose 3-1 to Levante at the weekend, making it three consecutive games where both teams scored, and six with over 2.5 goals (W5, L1). The opener was scored before half-time in all six of those games, and by the 15th minute in four.

Five of Barcelona’s previous six competitive home victories featured both teams scoring. Slavia’s last six UCL defeats saw them concede exactly two goals. There’s been at least one goal in the final half-hour in five of Barcelona’s last six competitive games.

Slavia Prague travel here unbeaten on the road within 90 minutes this season (W7, D4), with all but one of their away victories coming ‘to nil’. Yet the Czech champions have never won a UCL group stage away game (D2, L2), although notably they did score in three of those previous four fixtures, but both defeats saw them concede at least four goals and ship the opener by the tenth minute. Tomáš Souček has been Slavia’s first goalscorer in five of the six games he’s found the net this season. However, the Czech top-flight’s best away side this season are yet to lose an away league game after netting 2.0 goals on average per road trip, whist conceding just 0.25 on average. In fact, Slavia haven’t conceded more than two goals in any of their last 15 UCL games (qualification included).