Ajax vs Real Madrid Predictions

After being drawn in a group alongside Bayern Munich and Benfica, Ajax weren’t exactly the favourites to make it through to the knockout stages earlier this season. However, after kicking off the campaign with a 3-0 win over AEK Athens and following that with a draw away to Bayern Munich, confidence continued to grow in the Johan Cruyff Arena.

Ajax ended the group stages as 1 of only 5 teams to remain unbeaten throughout, and they only finished 2 points behind Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich in the end. The result of this 2 point gap has been an incredibly tough draw against Real Madrid, although Bayern Munich’s top of the group finish did set up an equally tough clash with Liverpool.

The hosts have fallen on some tough times in recent weeks, including a 6-2 thrashing against old rivals Feyenoord at the end of January. Their most recent failure was a loss at Heracles on Saturday, but they will be relying on their historically excellent home form to give them confidence. Ajax haven’t been beaten on home soil since November 2017, and they have lost just 1 of their last 21 European home games.

This is Real Madrid we’re talking about though. Los Blancos picked up yet another Champions League trophy last season, and while they suffered a very difficult patch earlier in the season, it seems that Santiago Solari has righted the ship. Solari took charge after a run of 4 defeats in Real Madrid’s previous 5 games, but since then they have lost just 4 times in 25 competitive games.

The visitors 3-1 win over arch rivals Atletico MAdrid on Saturday made it 7 games unbeaten in all competitions, and 6 of these have ended in victory. They have scored 20 goals in these 7 matches, meaning we can be hopeful of a high scoring match on Wednesday.

In fact, 5 of Real Madrid’s last 8 competitive away games have seen at least 4 goals scored. This is an impressive record, but Ajax take that even further, with at least 4 goals in each of their last 6 competitive home matches.

There has been an almost unbelievable average of 6.33 goals per game in this period, and combining that with Real Madrid’s high scoring ways, we think a bet of Over 3.5 Goals is a good option here. Given that Ajax held Bayern Munich to stalemates both home and away earlier this season, we also fancy a 2-2 correct score prediction.