Villarreal vs Bayern Munich

Bayern Munich head to the Estadio de la Ceramica to encounter Villarreal in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarter-final tie.

Villarreal staged a massive upset in the round of 16, claiming an overwhelming 3-0 second-leg win away to Juventus to secure their first Champions League quarter-final appearance since 2008/09 when they bowed out to Arsenal. However, Villarreal’s overall record in the Champions League last-16 reads (W1, D2, L3), with the solitary success coming against Inter Milan in 2006. This encounter will mark Unai Emery’s 50th Champions League game in charge, with the Spanish manager boasting a positive record across his 49 managerial fixtures in the competition thus far (W21, D10, L18). Yet, ‘El Submarino Amarillo’ will take the field with their confidence at a bare minimum after suffering back-to-back La Liga defeats ‘to nil,’ including a 2-0 away loss to relegation-threatened Levante at the weekend.

In the meantime, Bayern Munich’s overwhelming 8-2 aggregate win over Red Bull Salzburg in the round of 16 catapulted them to the Champions League quarter-finals for the third season in a row. The ‘Bavarians’ have gone unbeaten in their last five Champions League knock-out games when playing the first leg away from home (W3, D2), including a 1-1 draw at Salzburg in the previous round. Since failing to get on the scoresheet against Liverpool in February 2019 (0-0), Julian Nagelsmann’s heavy-hitters have netted a staggering 101 goals in the Champions League proper, averaging a stunning 3.4 goals per matches across their last 30 outings in the competition whilst picking up 26 victories in that sequence (D2, L2). But a lack of consistency has seen Bayern alternate between winning (2) and drawing (2) across their last four away games in all competitions, scoring precisely once in three of them.