Real Madrid vs Chelsea: Prediction and Preview
For the third consecutive season, Real Madrid and Chelsea are facing off in the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League. And like all good trilogies, the sides go into this tie level.
It was Chelsea who landed the first blow at the semi-final stage in 2020-21, before Real responded in the quarter-finals last season. Both times the side that progressed went on to win the UCL title. So, are we looking at the potential winners of the competition?
Frank Lampard will be the third Blues manager to take charge of the club in this season’s competition, following on from Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter. And whilst the task of taking on the reigning champions might feel like a tall one, the Blues are unbeaten in six UEFA Champions League matches against reigning champions (W2 D4), the longest ever unbeaten run in the competition against the current holders.
Chelsea have only lost one of their seven games against Real Madrid in European competition and seem to have taken great pleasure on their trips to Spain, having lost one of their last nine UEFA Champions League knockout-stage matches away to Spanish opposition (W3 D5).
But Carlo Ancelotti’s outfit have progressed from nine of their two-legged knockout ties against English clubs in Europe’s premier club competition, including each of the last three in a row – their last-16 tie this season against Liverpool, the semi-finals against Manchester City last campaign alongside their quarter-finals triumph over the Blues.
Previous Meeting
Real Madrid 2-3 Chelsea: 12 April 2022 (Champions League)
Real Madrid progressed 5-4 on aggregate against Chelsea last season before going on to win the competition with a 1-0 final win over Liverpool in Paris.
Chelsea may have won the second leg match 3-2 at Santiago Bernabéu, but Karim Benzema’s extra-time goal saw Los Blancos through to the semi-finals. Chelsea were leading the game 3-0 with just 10 minutes remaining in normal time – a result that would have seen them sensationally turn the tie around after a first leg 3-1 defeat at Stamford Bridge – but Rodrygo’s 80th-minute strike sent the game to extra time.
Chelsea became just the second team to score three away goals against Real Madrid in European competition, after Man Utd’s 3- European Cup draw there in May 1968.
Real Madrid’s first leg 3-1 win at Stamford Bridge saw Benzema score a sensational hat-trick. It was his second successive hat-trick in the UCL after also scoring three against Paris Saint-Germain in his previous appearance less than a month earlier. He was just the fourth player to score a hat-trick in back-to-back UEFA Champions League appearances after Cristiano Ronaldo (2017), Lionel Messi (2016) and Luiz Adriano (2014), while he became the first ever player to score a European treble against Chelsea in any competition.
His third goal in the match also saw him score his 11th Champions League goal of 2021-22, before he eventually reached 15. This goal saw him overtake Just Fontaine’s 10-goal tally back in 1958-59 as the highest scoring Frenchman in a single UCL/European Cup season.
Recent Form
Real Madrid might have stuttered domestically in La Liga against Villarreal at the weekend, following a week in which they triumphed in the Copa del Rey against arch rival Barcelona, but on the European front, their form has been incredibly strong – having lost only one of their last 10 matches in the UEFA Champions League (W8 D1) and winning each of their last three in a row.
And when it comes to knockout stages matches, they’ve found the back of the net in each of their last 30 such home games, scoring 69 goals in the process (2.3 per game), it might be worth backing Real to take the victory in this one, even if the Blues do stage a comeback.
Chelsea are also going through their own domestic woes. Defeat against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday extended their winless run to four and, more worryingly, after being blanked by Wolves they have now gone 323 minutes without a goal in the Premier League, something former Everton manager Frank Lampard will be hoping to solve. But in Europe, they’ve lost just two of their last nine UEFA Champions League knockout-stage matches whilst they’ve won four of their last six away from home (D1 L1).
Chelsea reached the knockout stages by topping the Group E standings ahead of Milan, RB Salzburg and Dinamo Zagreb. They then turned around the last-16 tie against Borussia Dortmund to make it to the quarter-finals, losing the first leg 1-0 in Germany but winning 2-0 at Stamford Bridge in the second leg thanks to goals from Raheem Sterling and a Kai Havertz penalty.
Overall, Chelsea’s UCL games this season have been low-scoring affairs, with just 2.13 goals per game. Only matches involving Spurs (1.88) and Bayer Leverkusen (2.00) have average lower in the 2022-23 competition.
Real Madrid won their group stage ahead of RB Leipzig, Shakhtar Donetsk and Celtic. They then qualified for the last eight with an emphatic round of 16 victory over Liverpool – a repeat of last year’s final – winning 6-2 on aggregate, including a 5-2 win at Anfield in the first leg.
Key Players
Real Madrid: Karim Benzema
Who else could we pick here but the player who tormented Chelsea last season. The reality is though, it’s English clubs in general that the Frenchman loves to find the back of the net against.
Each of Benzema’s last 10 goals in the UEFA Champions League for Real Madrid have come against such sides (in order: x4 Chelsea, x3 Manchester City, x3 Liverpool) with all of them having been netted in the knockout stages.
Since making his debut in the competition in 2005-06, only Cristiano Ronaldo (44) and Lionel Messi (39) have scored more match-winning goals in the UEFA Champions League than Benzema (22),
Chelsea: Raheem Sterling
Whilst Chelsea have been solid defensively in the competition so far this season conceding just five goals, they are going to need to match Real’s threat up top.
A lot of that pressure will rest upon the shoulders of Raheem Sterling, the Blues’ top scorer (three) in the competition this season. He’s been involved in five open play goal-ending sequences so far this season, the most of any Chelsea player.
Sterling has scored 27 goals in the UEFA Champions League, the second most of any Englishman after Wayne Rooney (30). Chelsea fans will be dearly hoping he can find the back of the net on a couple of occasions across this quarter-final tie.
Real Madrid vs Chelsea Prediction
It seems like home advantage is going to be key in at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, with Real Madrid being made the supercomputer favourites to pick up the victory on Wednesday. They are given a 56.4% chance of winning the match ahead of kick-off, and a win would end a two-match run of home defeats at the quarter-final stage of the UEFA Champions League.
Chelsea, meanwhile, have a just over one-in-five chance of taking the advantage into the second leg at Stamford Bridge, although with the chance of a draw at 23.5%, even Frank Lampard would probably see that as a positive result.
Of the sides left in the UEFA Champions League this campaign, our supercomputer sees Chelsea having the lowest chance of going on to take the honours at 1.9%. But it isn’t much better for the reigning champions with Real Madrid having just a 12.5% chance of retaining their crown. Both of those are some way off the competition favourites Manchester City (28.2%), Napoli (21.1%) and Bayern Munich (18.5%).
Inter Milan (7.5%), Benfica (5.1%) and AC Milan (5.1%) the sides with a better chance of winning the competition than Chelsea.
Real Madrid vs Chelsea UCL Squads
Real Madrid: Thibaut Courtois, Andriy Lunin, Luis López*, Lucas Cañizares*, Diego Piñeiro*, Dani Carvajal, Éder Militão, David Alaba, Jesús Vallejo, Nacho, Álvaro Odriozola, Antonio Rüdiger, Ferland Mendy, Rafel Obrador*, Rafa Marín*, Alvaro Carrillo*, Vinicius Tobias, Marvel*, Toni Kroos, Luka Modrić, Eduardo Camavinga, Federico Valverde, Lucas Vázquez, Aurélien Tchouameni, Dani Ceballos, Mario Martín*, Carlos Dotor*, Sergio Arribas*, Peter*, Óscar Aranda*, Nicolás Paz*, Eden Hazard, Karim Benzema, Marco Asensio, Vinícius Júnior, Rodrygo, Mariano Díaz, Iker Bravo, Álvaro Rodríguez*.
Chelsea: Kepa Arrizabalaga, Marcus Bettinelli, Edouard Mendy, Lucas Bergström*, Thiago Silva, Trevoh Chalobah, Ben Chilwell, Reece James, Kalidou Koulibaly, César Azpilicueta, Marc Cucurella, Wesley Fofana, Enzo Fernández, N’Golo Kanté, Mateo Kovačić, Christian Pulišić, Raheem Sterling, Mason Mount, Danis Zakaria, Hakim Ziyech, Conor Gallagher, Kai Havertz, Carney Chukwuemeka, Charlie Webster*, Lewis Hall*, João Félix, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Mykhailo Mudryk, Armando Broja*.
