German giants Bayern Munich are favourites to win Wednesday’s UEFA Champions League tussle at Villa Park. We look ahead to the game with our Aston Villa vs Bayern Munich prediction and preview.
Aston Villa vs Bayern Munich Stats: The Key Insights
- The Opta supercomputer makes Bayern Munich favourites at Villa Park, giving them a 53.1% chance of victory to the hosts’ 24.1%.
- Villa could become just the second English team to win their first two UEFA Champions League games, after Leicester City did so in 2016-17.
- Harry Kane has been involved in seven goals in six career appearances at Villa Park (five goals, two assists), scoring the winner there for Tottenham on two occasions.
Aston Villa’s first outing at the top table of European football since 1983 could hardly have gone more smoothly, as they beat Young Boys 3-0 to make a fine start to their maiden UEFA Champions League campaign.
On Matchday 2, Villa face the team they beat in the 1982 European Cup final, Bayern Munich, though a huge test is surely in store after the German giants crushed Dinamo Zagreb two weeks ago, becoming the first team to score nine goals in a Champions League game.
That remarkable victory at the Allianz Arena, which saw Bayern match Real Madrid’s feat as the last team to score nine goals in a European Cup match in 1990 (9-1 versus Wacker Innsbruck), featured a four-goal haul from Harry Kane as he surpassed Wayne Rooney to become the highest-scoring English player in Champions League history, with 33 goals.
Kane suffered an injury scare as Bayern played out a 1-1 draw with Bundesliga title rivals Bayer Leverkusen on Saturday, forced off in the latter stages with an ankle problem. Vincent Kompany will be desperately hoping he makes Wednesday’s match, given his fine record at Villa Park.
Kane has been directly involved in seven goals in six career appearances against Aston Villa at Villa Park (five goals, two assists). Indeed, he has scored the game-winning goal there on two previous occasions, netting a 90th-minute winner in November 2014 (2-1) and both goals in a 2-0 victory there in March 2016 – both as a Tottenham player.
Should Kane be passed fit, he will be relying on service from Jamal Musiala, who created more chances than any other player on MD1 of this Champions League campaign (seven). At the age of 21 years and 204 days, Musiala became the youngest player since records began (in 2003-04) to lay on seven open-play chances in a Champions League match.
Though Bayern made a flying start to UEFA’s new-look league phase and entered MD2 top of the standings, they have struggled when travelling across Europe lately. They are winless in their last three away matches in the Champions League (one draw, two defeats), last enduring a longer such streak between February and September 2016 (two draws, two defeats), spanning the reigns of Pep Guardiola (three) and Carlo Ancelotti (one).
Bayern should expect a far sterner test in England against a Villa side that looked right at home among Europe’s elite on Matchday 1. Youri Tielemans, Jacob Ramsey and Amadou Onana were on target as Unai Emery’s men cruised to victory in Switzerland, and they could now become just the second Premier League club to win their first two matches in the Champions League. Only Leicester City, who beat Club Brugge 3-0 and Porto 1-0 in the 2016-17 season, have previously achieved that feat since the competition’s 1992-93 rebrand.
The star of the show for Villa two weeks ago was undoubtedly Morgan Rogers, who created four chances from open play in a breakout performance. That was the most by any English player on their Champions League debut since an 18-year-old Danny Welbeck created five for Manchester United versus Besiktas in 2009.
Villa’s opening match saw Emery become just the sixth different manager to lead six clubs in the Champions League (Valencia, Spartak Moscow, Sevilla, Paris Saint-Germain and Villarreal previously), after José Mourinho, Ronald Koeman, Claudio Ranieri, Rafael Benítez (all six) and Ancelotti (eight).
The Spaniard has a tremendous record in Europe, only losing three of his previous 20 non-knockout-stage matches in the Champions League (13 wins, four draws), though one of those defeats did come against Bayern in December 2017 when in charge of PSG (3-1).
Emery could welcome Matty Cash back from injury on Wednesday, though John McGinn is still out, as are long-term absentees Boubacar Kamara and Tyrone Mings.
Aston Villa vs Bayern Munich Head-to-Head
This will be just the second-ever meeting between Villa and FC Bayern, after Peter Withe scored the only goal in the Villans’ 1982 European Cup final victory at De Kuip in Rotterdam.
Bayern have only lost one of their last 10 Champions League meetings with English sides, however (seven wins, two draws) a 3-0 defeat to Manchester City in the 2022-23 quarter-finals.
Emery, meanwhile, has already beaten Bayern in the Champions League on two previous occasions, winning 3-0 in September 2017 in charge of PSG and 1-0 in April 2022 with Villarreal. The only manager to beat Bayern in the competition with as many as three different teams is Mourinho, with Chelsea, Inter and Real Madrid.
Aston Villa vs Bayern Munich Prediction
Despite Villa being a force to be reckoned with at home, Bayern’s European know-how sees them given the edge by the Opta supercomputer.
They emerged victorious from 53.1% of the 10,000 pre-match simulations conducted by the supercomputer, with Villa winning 24.1%. The chances of a draw, meanwhile, are rated at 22.8%.
Aston Villa vs Bayern Munich Predicted Lineups
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Wednesday, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Aston Villa vs Bayern Munich UCL Squads
Aston Villa: Emiliano Martínez, Robin Olsen, Joe Gauci, Matty Cash, Kosta Nedeljkovic, Ezri Konsa, Pau Torres, Diego Carlos, Tyrone Mings, Ian Maatsen, Lucas Digne, Boubacar Kamara, Ross Barkley, John McGinn, Youri Tielemans, Emiliano Buendía, Jaden Philogene, Amadou Onana, Jacob Ramsey, Morgan Rogers, Leon Bailey, Jhon Durán, Ollie Watkins.
Head Coach: Unai Emery
Bayern Munich: Manuel Neuer, Daniel Peretz, Sven Ulreich, Dayot Upamecano, Kim Min-jae, Eric Dier, Hiroki Ito, Raphaël Guerreiro, Sacha Boey, Josip Stanišić, Leon Goretzka, Joshua Kimmich, Leroy Sané, João Palhinha, Michael Olise, Alphonso Davies, Konrad Laimer, Javier Fernández, Jamal Musiala, Serge Gnabry, Harry Kane, Kingsley Coman, Thomas Müller, Nestory Irankunda, Mathys Tel.
Head coach: Vincent Kompany
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