Napoli vs Real Madrid Odds
| Napoli Odds | +160 |
| Real Madrid Odds | +155 |
| Draw | +260 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -160 / +125 |
Both Napoli and Real Madrid needed late winners to take all three points from their Champions League openers. The Italian side got a stoppage time own goal to beat Braga on the road and Jude Bellingham gave Real Madrid a 1-0 home win against Union Berlin. The two Group C favorites will face off for the first of two matches against one another in the Champions League group stage on Tuesday.
Napoli's league form in Serie A has been inconsistent to begin the season, but the underlying numbers remain as good as ever for the Italian champions. Real Madrid sit atop the table in Spain through seven matches, but Los Blancos' underlying numbers have taken a step back overall from last year's campaign. Even though Vinicius Junior is back in the lineup and played on Saturday in the win away at Girona, I'm not sure the gap in true talent between these two sides is big enough to warrant this game being lined as a toss-up in Naples.
Here is how I'm seeing Napoli vs Real Madrid.
Napoli
Napoli have dropped points in three of their opening seven matches in Serie A and have drifted from second favorite to fourth favorite to win the Scudetto once again, behind Inter, AC Milan and Juventus. I don't see anything in their underlying numbers to suggest that this Napoli side is anything more than marginally worse than last year's side that electrified the Champions League and Serie A last season.
Victor Osimhen took the leap into Europe's elite strikers at 4.5 shots per 90 and finished with 26 goals in 28.5 matches in Serie A last year. He's maintained that form into this season completely and sits with five goals in six 90s, 0.82 xG per 90 and excelled in Napoli's CL opener with Braga. Despite his potential lawsuit with the club off the field, Osimhen is still playing and producing at a world class level.
The sample is small for Khvicha Kavaratskhelia, but he's actually taken another step forward to add more high quality shots into his overall profile. He already had the elite dribbling and passing last year and now he's been able to improve his shot production (2.97 last year per 90, 5.67 thus far this year).
The Italian side has conceded a bunch of inopportune goals and conceded six goals from 4.2 xGA, but they are conceding fewer shots and shots on goal per match than even Jose Mourinho's Roma. They're also allowing the fourth-lowest shot quality in Serie A.
Real Madrid
Real Madrid signed Bellingham and he's made an immediate impact to help cover for the loss of Karim Benzema. But as his goal scoring starts to dry up and he regresses back toward his career average as a goal producer, there's real questions if Real Madrid have enough goalscoring production to maintain themselves as a top five club team in the world. Bellingham scored eight goals in 29 90s in the wide open Bundesliga for high flying Dortmund last season and he's already scored six times in 6.7 90s in La Liga this season.
Add in his Champions League goal too — he's the top scorer at the club — but he will not continue scoring one out of every three shots he takes.
Los Blancos have scored a ton of late goals to grab extra points — Bellingham scored in stoppage time against Union Berlin and Getafe and scored a late winner against Celta Vigo. When Madrid have played upper echelon opponents in Spain this season, the defense hasn't held up to scrutiny. One major red flag is how many early goals they've conceded. Real went down in the first 20 minutes to Getafe, Almeria, Atletico Madrid and Real Sociedad. They nearly went down early to Celta Vigo if not for a highly controversial VAR decision to overturn the goal.
Almeria, Celta, Sociedad, Atletico and Girona all produced more than 1 xG in their matches against this Real side. Even though they've started to transition the primary midfield minutes to get younger, they don't do much pressing to strangle opponents, don't have an elite shot stopper anymore without Thibault Courtois and rank around sixth defensively in La Liga in most metrics, including xGA per 90.
Vinicius Junior is one of the best wide forwards in the world and his return enables Real to maintain their status as an elite transition attacking team. The attack took a step back in its progressive carries and box entries without him, but he should be fully fit to start on Tuesday after starting on Saturday. The attack produced 2.3 xG in that match, but also conceded 1.6 xGA.
Napoli vs Real Madrid
Pick & Prediction
Real Madrid have some real midfield talent advantages in this matchup, but Napoli remain the better defensive outfit by a solid margin. Napoli are a top two defense in Italy and still have two world class superstars in attack. They shouldn't be underdogs or even a coin flip at home. If you were power rating teams in Europe, both Napoli and Real Madrid would be in the same tier.
As a result of that, I'll bet Napoli as a pick'em at home on Tuesday. For all of their Champions League voodoo, Real Madrid have just seven away wins in its last 23 CL matches.
Pick: Napoli – Draw No Bet (-120 or better)/
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