Galatasaray vs Bayern Munich Prediction | Champions League Preview
DeFodi Images/Getty. Pictured: Leon Goretzka.
Galatasaray vs Bayern Munich Odds
| Galatasaray Odds | +500 |
| Bayern Munich Odds | -225 |
| Draw | +400 |
| Over / Under | 3.5 -110 / -110 |
Bayern Munich look for their third straight win of the group stage when they head to Turkey to take on Galatasaray.
Galatasaray pulled off a major upset the last time out in the Champions League, beating Manchester United 3-2 at Old Trafford. The champions of Turkey have an incredibly experienced squad of players who have played at some of the top clubs around Europe, so they will be no pushover for the German giants.
Bayern Munich are on cruise control to begin the season. They've had a couple shaky results to begin their Bundesliga campaign, but the underlying metrics are incredibly impressive at the moment. Bayern Munich are the kings of the Champions League group stage, as they've won 15 straight matches and their last loss in the group stage came to PSG in 2017.
Galatasaray
The match against Manchester United was a perfect picture of what Galatasaray are. They will play out of the back at times, but mainly love to use long balls up the pitch to create chances. They did this with great success against Manchester United, completing 43 long balls, which in turn led to them creating 2.6 xG and two big scoring chances on the road at Old Trafford.
They will be without their star striker Mauro Icardi, but he is not everything to their attack. Galatasaray have assembled a team of experienced attacking players like Wilfred Zaha, Hakim Ziyech, Tete and Dries Mertens. They are all dangerous in transitional opportunities. Their style of play of trying to get long balls into wide areas can really be successful here against Bayern Munich, who are naturally a very compact central of the pitch oriented team.
The problem here for Galatasaray is Bayern Munich might put four goals in the back of the net themselves because Galatasaray are not a good defensive team. They may try to play compact against Bayern Munich here, but even in the Turkish Super League over the past two seasons they are allowing over 1.30 xG per 90 minutes.
The problem with Galatasaray defensively is they tend to play a passive 4-4-2 when playing against bigger competition when normally they are a mid to high block team domestically. That can allow teams like Bayern too much time and space on the ball to rip them apart. Manchester United were able to create 2.3 xG against them in the match at Old Trafford, which is not encouraging now having to face one of the best offensive teams in the world.
Not only do Galatasaray defend in a bob-standard 4-4-2 which allows the opposition time and space on the ball in defence, but they also badly lack physicality as a whole.
So, as much as Galatasaray have the technique to take control of the game in moments, they are vulnerable. pic.twitter.com/5MOiuPF3pS
— EBL (@EBL2017) October 3, 2023
Bayern Munich
It’s really hard to garner much from Bayern’s stats in the Bundesliga right now because they are first in pretty much every single category both offensively and defensively. Their offensive numbers are ridiculous though. Bayern Munich are averaging 2.68 xG per 90 minutes in the Bundesliga and their 1.8 xG created against Mainz this past weekend was the first time in Germany that they’ve been held under two expected goals.
What Tuchel has done this season and why Bayern Munich have been so good is the box midfield that he’s implemented, which allows players when they’re on the ball to have three passing options instead of the usual two in a triangle midfield, and it also allows Bayern to overload the middle of the pitch, which is where the goals are. Now that they have a striker like Harry Kane who is fantastic at dropping deep to receive the ball and is great at hold up play, you can see how big of an impact it’s had on Bayern Munich.
The downside of the box midfield is you are committing so many players to the middle of the pitch which means that teams have space in wide areas. That is exactly where Galatsaray do their best work, throwing long balls out wide and then having Icardi make runs off the last line of defense. Bayern haven't really played a team like or to the level of Galatasaray and even with all of their great defensive numbers, they are allowing a 50% long ball completion rate.
Galatasaray vs Bayern Munich
Prediction
Bayern Munich have been flying offensively and putting up crazy xG numbers all because of the introduction of Harry Kane, who has completely transformed the way Bayern Munich play. If the opponent is not good enough at defending the center of the pitch, they are going to play right through them with their box midfield. Galatasaray are not good or physical enough to compete with Bayern Munich in the center of the pitch, so you may see Bayern put three or four goals in the back of the net.
Given the way Galatasaray play, it leads to a lot of high event style matches. Playing a lot of vertical passes either over the top or into wide areas creates a very high-paced match, which plays right into Bayern Munich's hand. However, Bayern have been vulnerable at times in transition moments and given how compact they are in the center of the pitch, when they lose the ball there is space in wide areas for Galatasaray to play those long balls and eventually create chances.
I have 3.75 goals projected for this match, so I like the value on the over.
Pick: Over 3.5 (+110 via FanDuel)
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