Champions League bold predictions: Liverpool will rely on Alisson to save them, Pedri shines for Barcelona

It’s elimination week in the Champions League, 16 set to become eight as the quarterfinals beckon. Last week brought high drama in Paris, a decisive result in Munich and a performance of defensive nous from Barcelona in Lisbon. It is those games and their second legs that we’ll look ahead to this week. As always you can catch coverage of all the action across Paramount+, CBS Sports Network and CBS Sports Golazo Network.

1. Liverpool vs. PSG: Alisson delivers again

Alisson’s performance in Liverpool’s 1-0 first leg with at the Parc des Princes ranks among the best individual shot-stopping performances the Champions League has ever seen. Don’t be surprised if he goes close to that high watermark again on Tuesday evening.

It isn’t just that Luis Enrique’s attacking juggernaut are going to create issues for Liverpool, as they would any side in the world on current form. You shouldn’t be surprised that Alisson delivered one of the best goalkeeping displays of recent years because Alisson is one of the best goalkeepers of recent years. 

Since the start of the 2019-20 Champions League season there have been 33 occasions, including in qualifying matches, where goalkeepers have prevented more than two goals, according to Opta’s post-shot expected goal (xG) model. Alisson is one of only two goalkeepers to have had two such games. The other Andre Onana in his imperial phase on Inter’s march to the 2023 Champions League final.

Over recent years, perhaps only Thibaut Courtois comes to life against the biggest opponents quite like Alisson — and what the Brazilian offers with his sweeping behind a high line and possession play make him the superior all around player. Last Wednesday might have been “the performance of [his] life,” but in the last five years of Champions League football he has delivered more often than not. Only once, in the calamitous 5-2 loss to Real Madrid in the spring of 2023, has his goals prevented mark been worse then -0.6. In 12 matches he has ended the game at plus 0.6.

That mark might need to be hit again. Arne Slot won’t have discovered new full backs on the training ground who can slow the march of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia or Ousmane Dembele. Liverpool’s midfield will still be technically and physically behind PSG’s. Mohamed Salah will need to play and that means having a right winger who shades his defensive duties so he can make an impact on the ball. If their visitors are half the team they were in the Parc des Princes they will get their fair share of shots. Lucky then that there was no great flukery in Alisson’s performance for the ages.

2. Leverkusen vs. Bayern Munich: Alonso goes down swinging

Any feint hope that Bayer Leverkusen might Bayer Leverkusen their way out of the hole they dug themselves in the first leg went up in smoke early on Monday morning. Scans on Florian Wirtz’s knee revealed ligament damage, enough to sideline him for an unclear timeline of “several weeks.” However long that might be, he will not be back soon enough for what now looks like Mission: Impossible at the Bay Arena.

Wirtz might have raised Leverkusen’s ceiling to such a level that perhaps they could have beaten Bayern Munich by three goals, as they did last season in the Bundesliga. If there are any better creators in Europe’s top five leagues they number only a handful. His 0.91 goal creating actions puts him eighth across the continent, his expected assists fifth, ahead even of the likes of Raphinha and Mohamed Salah. Wirtz’s absence will be profoundly felt.

Paradoxically, however, it might bring more out of Leverkusen as an attacking force. For all Xabi Alonso’s burgeoning excellence as a coach, his second full season has seen him place more of an attacking load on Wirtz, trusting that his young star’s final third excellence can allow him to tighten up at the back and get the goals at the other end. Frequently that has worked and even if Leverkusen did not get the goal in their league match against Bayern last month, Wirtz and Nathan Tella as an attacking duo created more than enough chances to win on that occasion.

Equally, there are quite major risks to playing a system that looks on paper to be a back four with wing backs ahead of them. It really relies on both the defenders to remain error free and Wirtz to see enough of the ball that he can do something with it. Neither of those happened in the first leg and Leverkusen now find themselves three goals down. For many, that’d be it and you could reasonably predict an anodyne second leg where the hosts are interested in little more than pride. Then again when you turned the unimaginable into the predictable last season like Leverkusen did, you could not help but believe it can happen again.

“It’s a game in a different dimension for us,” said Alonso, “it can go down in our individual history for a long time – if we play with great heart, passion, aggressiveness, intensity and with a cool head. It’s a chance we have that we might not have again in our careers, so we need to try until the end. We know how difficult it is, but sometimes a difficult situation creates an epic [story].”

Leverkusen are going to go for it, but in what fashion? Their system might have worked against Bayern in the past, but now they are without Wirtz it might just be the moment that Alonso loosens the reins and gets more of his forwards on the pitch. Their No.10 indisputably makes it easier for Leverkusen, but over the past two seasons this team averages slightly more goals and xG when Wirtz doesn’t start and only slightly fewer shots. They give up more of all three to their opponents too, speaking to the control that their star playmaker affords them. On Tuesday night that control will have to be sacrificed for threat.

What of returning to the 3-4-2-1 that remains a devastating template for Leverkusen? There are options. Patrik Schick might be way out ahead of his xG, but there is certainly no harm in seeing if his hot streak might keep running. Nathan Tella has consistently delivered against Bayern. The tiny sample size of Emiliano Buendia in the Bundesliga looks like something that is worth taking another look at.

Flank that three with Alex Grimaldo and Jeremie Frimpong and there will be enough talent to put pressure on the Bayern backline. It might even be enough to briefly raise hopes of another one of those iconic Leverkusen comebacks. Doubtless such an approach will ask more of a backline who Alonso, perhaps scarred by all that late drama, has been intent on shielding this season. If their forlorn attempt at a Wirtz-less comeback is going to pay off, though, there is no choice but to throw caution to the wind.

3. Barcelona vs. Benfica: Pedri cuts opponent to shreds

Barcelona’s first-leg win was all the more impressive given the difficulties that came with Pau Cubarsi’s extremely early red card. Could the midfield hold its own a man down when Dani Olmo was sacrificed for Ronald Araujo? That it could, in no small part down to the multifaceted qualities of Pedri. 

You’re never going to confuse the 5ft 9in ball player with Lee Cattermole, but when there was work to be done without the ball it was Pedri who did it. No one recovered possession more than the 22 year old, who did so 11 times in total. He might have lost one more of his 15 duels than he won, but that is seven times when Pedri went up against the bigger, heavier man and won the ball.

Don’t expect quite that sort of performance from Pedri on Tuesday night. Perhaps if that is what the occasion requires, but instead this feels like a game primed for the Spain international to be his most expressive self. In pursuit of victory Benfica are going to have to commit bodies forward and that leaves them vulnerable to the incision of Barcelona’s master creator.

With at least Raphinha and Lamine Yamal, Pedri is rarely short on options to get Barcelona flying up the pitch whenever the ball comes his way. Only five players have completed more through balls across Europe’s top five leagues this season, and it is the same number who are ahead of him in expected possession value provided from passing. 

The defensive chops of last week were not a one off either. At the top of Opta’s ranking of players who started possessions that end in a shot you have what you’d probably expect to see: a lot of goalkeepers, defenders and deeper-lying midfielders. They get the ball back then their team go. The highest ranked ‘creative’ player that you will find with 37 possession that began with him and ended with a shot? Pedri.

Though Raphinha looks to be the obvious contender for Barcelona’s star man and perhaps the natural alternative Ballon d’Or winner should something happen to Salah, Pedri certainly deserves to be in the conversation. Having put in the hard yards last week, this looks to be a game where his eye for a pass twinkles.