The Champions League last 16 fixtures are finally upon us after a two month break since the group stages.
One of the ties kicking off this week will see Austrian outfit RB Salzburg take on 2020 winners and German Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich.
Lets take a look at the tie in more detail and make our predictions to see who will progress into the last eight of Europe’s most prestigious cup competition.
Route to the last 16
Salzburg made it through to the knockout stages after making sure they took their opportunity to progress through the weakest group we’ve seen in a long time.
With three wins and one draw from their six group games, Salzburg found themselves finishing ahead of top seeds Sevilla and behind only Lille by one solitary point.
Bayern Munich made routine work of their group which included both Barcelona and Benfica too, winning six out of six games and conceding just three goals in the process.
They scored a competition high 22 goals in those games and have been marked as one of the favourites to win the whole thing again under Julien Nagelsmann.
Team news
The Austrian outfit will be without six regular first-teamers through injury for the game and that’s a huge blow to them.
Brenden Aaronson and Karim Adeyemi are the star attackers in the team and both are fit and expected to start, and they’re arguably coming up against Bayern at the perfect time.
The Germans are without Manuel Neuer, Alphonso Davies and Leon Goretzka for the game and are coming off the back of a 4-2 thumping by Bochum at the weekend.
That means Theo Hernandez will likely keep his place at left-back, while Sven Ulreich will start in goal. Frenchman Corentin Tolisso should start in midfield alongside Joshua Kimmich, after Nagelsmann’s failed experiment of using a lone holding midfielder.
Breakdown and Prediction
Salzburg usually use a 4-3-1-2 formation with a very narrow midfield and pace up front to try and cause damage to the opposition defence on the counter attack.
When they come up against Bayern Munich though, they will need to be at their absolute best and more to get something over two legs.
Bayern better them in quality all over the park and even without some first-choice players, they have more depth on their bench to choose from as well.
Salzburg will give it a good try for sure and without Neuer between the sticks they might be able to snatch a goal, but I’d seriously consider finding a betting market that offers you odds on Robert Lewandowski to outscore Salzburg across the tie because it’s probably going to come in.
RB Salzburg 1-3 Bayern Munich
Bayern Munich 4-0 RB Salzburg
(Bayern Munich to qualify 7-1 on aggregate)