Atlético Madrid vs Manchester United UEFA Champions League prediction: who is most likely to win the first leg?

The draw was done, and finally, Club Atletico de Madrid already knows his opponent in the round of 16 UEFA Champions League 2021-2022. It will be none other than the Manchester United Football Club of his sworn enemy, Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro. In what will undoubtedly be a very difficult save given the present of the Colchoneros.

The red and white team, miraculously qualified for the next round in the last match by beating Porto 3-1, did not have a decent gift, and each passing game seems to plunge them into a sea of ​​crisis and uncertainty. . Despite this, they have very important names and if they have a good strategy they could win this first game at home.

On the English side, it is the same situation. The arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo was not enough to cover the defensive problems of the team, which although improved with the arrival of Ralf Rannickstill has some way to improve if he wants to have enough to eliminate the Colchonero team.

Who is the favorite for the first leg?

Undoubtedly, on the basis of a mediocre record of two matches played in the European Championship at the same stadium (round of 16), Atlético Madrid are the favorites with a match won at home by a wide margin of 3 goals.

What are Atletico Madrid’s chances of defining the series in Spain?

If the record is good, the Colchonero can define the series in Spain with more than two goals with a probability of 63%.

What are Manchester United’s chances of getting a good result in Spain?

Very little, since according to history, in the only meeting they had in the round of 16 of the European Championship Tournament, they lost by three goals.

These contexts explained in statistical terms, skew the samples and leave us with a graph similar to this:

Cristiano Ronaldo is a determining factor

Yes, we are facing one of the best players in the world with an overall of 97% according to FIFA data, so we would see all the hopes of Manchester United turn to one player, which would vary the statistics like follows:

Manchester United do not score goals: 54% chance.

Manchester United scores a goal: 37% chance

Manchester United to score two goals: 11% chance

This leaves us with a very close verdict, with Atletico Madrid being the favorites but the CR7 factor is key to generating a very high probability of a close draw and the series being set in England.

What system is applied to predict this data?

At El Futbolero Spain we decided to apply our own measurement system based on the historical data of both teams helped by “The Professor”, the knowledge of statistical models and applicable Poisson distributions through Python programming.

Thanks to this, we can predict how many goals each team can score based on historical results.