Olympiacos Piraeus vs Bayer Leverkusen Prediction & Betting Tips (20 January)

With only 5 points gleaned during the first 6 days of this league phase, Olympiakos is not currently one of the teams qualified for the rest of the competition. The Greeks only occupy 29th place in the ranking and are 2 lengths behind the 24th and last qualifier for the play-offs. In recent days, the Piraeus club had been held to a draw by PSV Eindhoven 1-1 then beaten after a crazy match against Real Madrid 3-4 before regaining hope by dominating Kairat Almaty 0-1. On the national scene, Olympiakos follows in the footsteps of the leader of the Greek championship, AEK Athens, with only one point behind. Between now and this meeting, they will face Atromitos, PAOK Salonika in the Cup, and Asteras. For their part, Bayer Leverkusen is in the middle of the table in this Champions League regular season.

20th before these last two days, the Germans are in a rather good position to try to qualify for the play-offs even if they only have a 3 point margin on the first virtually eliminated. Slapped by PSG 2-7, Kasper Hjumland's men have since gone undefeated and won 2 wins against Benfica 0-1 and Manchester City 0-2 and a draw against Newcastle 2-2 on the last day. At the same time, in the championship, the Usine 11 is fighting for a place on the podium, very far from the Munich leader. Before this trip to Greece, Bayer players will face Stuttgart, Hamburg and Hoffenheim.

The leaders of Olympiakos did not wish to include the former Lille player Yacizi, the former Liga resident Ruben Vezo (ex-Valencia/Levante), the young Brazilian midfielder Gustavo Mancha, the replacement goalkeepers Paschalakis and Botis and the young Konstantinos Angelakis on the list of players authorized to play in this Champions League. In addition, the often used defender Pirola and the replacement goalkeeper Paschalakis are currently in the infirmary. However, the Greeks would otherwise have to rely on most of their strongmen for this match. We obviously think of the Moroccan El Kaabi who scored 12 goals in the league and 2 in this Champions League. He is the co-top scorer of this team in C1 with the former Monegasque Gelson Martins. At his side, we could find the Iranian Mehdi Taremi who has 7 goals to his credit in the Stoximan Super League this season.

On the side of Bayer Leverkusen, the Argentine midfielder Palacios is not operational for this poster. The latter was in any case not qualified for this Champions League in the same way as the French striker Terrier (3 goals since his return from injury), the often used midfielder Hofmann and the young Argentinian Sarco. Having left with their respective selections to compete in the CAN in recent weeks, midfielder Maza (Algeria) and attackers Ben Seghir (Morocco) and Kofane (Cameroon) will have returned by this meeting. At the forefront, we should certainly find the Czech striker Schick (6 goals, 2 assists) while the excellent Spanish piston Grimaldo (4 goals, 4 assists in the league, 3 goals and 1 assist in C1) remains one of the major dangers of this formation.