Next Wednesday, 1st of October 2014, La Liga champions, Atlético Madrid, will entertain Serie A winners, Juventus, at the emblematic Estádio Vicente Calderón for round two of this season’s UEFA Champions League edition, on a match of paramount importance for the Colchoneros especially after their defeat at Piraeus two weeks ago.

Atlético Madrid, who reached the UEFA Champions League final last season, haven’t start their new campaign at the most prestigious club’s competition of the Old Continent well, as they failed to make a stand against Olympiakos and ended up by losing the match by 3-2.

The Spanish champions were surprised by a well organized Greek team lead by former Real Madrid all time favourite Michel Gonzalez and although they tried by all means to balance the score until the very last minutes of the match, they left Piraeus with nothing better than a defeat under the arms.

Atlético eventually managed to bounce back from their Greek tragedy and after having conceded a 2-2 home draw against Celta de Vigo, the Colchoneros collected two wins from their respective matches against Almeria and Sevilla. Last Saturday, with Diego Simeone back at the dugout, Atlético hammered the UEFA Europa League holders Sevilla by 4-0 at Vicente Calderón and put up a quality performance to go it.

Atlético’s defeat on the first day of the Champions League will now force them to defeat Juventus, otherwise they might find themselves sailing straight into troubled waters, particularly if Olympiakos overcome Malmo on their visit to Sweden on the same day.

As for Juventus, the current Serie A champions are enjoying a very positive even after the departure from Antonio Conte last Summer. The Vecchia Signora  already seems to be fully adapted to their new manager’s ideas as they’ve collected six wins from their last six official matches, some of them against fairly complicated opponents, such as AC Milan.

The new boss, Massimiliano Allegri, is still implementing his personal style in a team deeply “edited” by Antonio Conte’s strategy, but so far, he has been doing great.

After defeating AC Milan at San Siro last weekend, Juventus did great in the two Serie A matches they took part in this week, scoring six goals and conceding none. In fact, the Vecchia Signora is yet to concede a single goal at Serie A this season and the same thing goes for the Champions League.

Although they have not yet reached the quality level they’ve displayed last season, Atlético Madrid have to be considered slight favourite for next Wednesday’s match. Juventus, on the other hand, who failed to make a stand on the last edition of the Champions League, will certainly have a word to say at Vicente Calderón’s match.

Atlético Madrid

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

Recent Form - LWDDW

Juventus

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

Recent Form - WWWLW

Possible Line-ups

Atlético Madrid (4-4-1-1) - Moya - Juanfran - Miranda - Godín - Ansaldi - Tiago - Gabi - Koke - Griezmann - Raul Garcia - Mandzukic

Juventus  (3-4-1-2) - Buffon - Stephan Lichtsteiner - Bonucci - Ogbonna - Chiellini - Patrice Evra - Paul Pogba - Claudio Marchisio - Vidal - Carlos Tevez - Llorente

Prediction

Atlético Madrid 1 Juventus 1