Real Madrid vs Manchester City (Champions League): odds and picks 10.12.2025

A big match at the Bernabéu this Wednesday, 10 December in the middle of the Champions League group stage. Real Madrid are in low spirits after their 2-0 home defeat to Celta, with six points from their last five league games and having lost the lead to Barça. Even so, in the Champions League they have a 4-0-1 record with 12 goals scored and only 5 conceded, the numbers of a very competitive team in Europe.

City, for its part, arrives as a competitive machine: 2nd in the Premier League with 10-1-4 (31 points) and a very strong recent run, with consecutive wins against Leeds, Fulham (5-4) and Sunderland (0-3). It is also doing well in the Champions League: 3-1-1, 10 goals scored and 5 conceded. The context is clear: Madrid clings to its European mystique and the Bernabéu, while City arrives in better form and faces an opponent in the midst of a defensive crisis.

Real Madrid

Madrid find themselves in a very peculiar situation: very solid European results, but a sense of internal crisis. In La Liga, they are second with 11 wins, 3 draws and 2 defeats (32-15 in goals), but they are coming off a 0-2 loss to Celta at the Bernabéu and have only picked up 6 points in their last five league games. In the Champions League, however, their record is brilliant: four wins and one defeat (2-1 against Marseille, 0-5 at Kairat, 1-0 against Juventus, 0-1 at Anfield and 3-4 in Piraeus against Olympiacos).

The big drama is at the back. The team is literally down to the wire: Militao, Alexander-Arnold, Carvajal, Mendy and Alaba are out with injuries, and Camavinga and Huijsen are practically ruled out. That leaves Xabi Alonso with very few defensive options: everything points to Valverde being converted to right-back, Rüdiger and Asensio as centre-backs and Carreras or Fran García on the left, according to the Spanish press.

Up front, the outlook is much better. In the Champions League, the team has scored 12 goals with 56.8% average possession and more than 2.4 goals per game. Bellingham, Vinícius and Mbappé (although hampered by a finger injury and doubts about his condition) remain an elite trio, and Rodrygo arrives to provide unpredictability and goals. My feeling is very clear: Madrid has enough quality to hurt anyone, but its defensive structure is so fragile that it depends heavily on scoring first and the game not going crazy at the back. If the exchange of blows continues, with so little defensive protection, it can really suffer.

Manchester City

City arrive with a much more recognisable script: a team in good form, with a well-established idea and Haaland in hammer mode. They are second in the Premier League with 10-1-4, 35 goals for and 16 against, and arrive with a recent form of WWWLW: victories against Bournemouth, Dortmund (4-1), Liverpool (0-3), Leeds (2-3), Fulham (5-4) and Sunderland (0-3), with their only setbacks coming at Leverkusen (2-0) and Newcastle (2-1).

In the Champions League, the numbers are very much ‘classic City’: 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat (2-0 at Napoli, 2-2 at Monaco, 0-2 in Villarreal, 4-1 against Dortmund and 0-2 against Leverkusen), with 10 goals scored, 5 conceded, 61% average possession and 92.4% pass accuracy. Domination with the ball, lots of long periods of positional attack and the ability to accelerate with players like Doku, Savinho and Foden on the wings. Doku, in particular, is coming off a season where his dribbling and unbalancing skills have exploded, and he is the type of player who suffers most from a patched-up defence like Madrid’s.

Haaland arrives as the offensive leader: 15 goals and a very high performance in domestic competitions, and 20 goals in 20 games counting all competitions. That reliability in the area, added to a second line with Bernardo Silva, Reijnders, Rodri, Nico González and Foden, means that City has many weapons to punish a team that defends with improvisation. My feeling is that Guardiola, knowing the state of the Whites’ defence, will insist on attacks from the wings and constant changes of direction to force Valverde and the full-backs to defend backwards.

Referee: Clément Turpin

Frenchman Clément Turpin will be in charge of the match. He is a UEFA classic, with extensive experience in the final stages of the Champions League. This season he has refereed four matches in the competition, with around 15 yellow cards and one straight red, giving us an approximate average of 3.7 yellows and 0.25 reds per match: a relatively controlled profile, neither too ‘under’ nor a lover of card festivals.

The fact that strikes me most is his record with Real Madrid: nine matches refereed, with eight wins for the Whites and one draw, including last year’s 3-2 win at the Bernabéu against Manchester City themselves. There are no major controversies to remember, but there is a feeling that he tends to allow quite a lot of contact while the match is under control and tightens the disciplinary bar when the tension rises. In terms of card betting, I imagine a reasonable line of around 4.5–5.5 yellow cards in total: it’s a big game, there will be a lot of competition in midfield and defenders will be late more than once, especially on the Real Madrid side.

My predictions for Real Madrid vs Manchester City

The market odds are moving in a fairly balanced scenario, with a slight advantage for Madrid due to the Bernabéu factor: around 2.40 for a Real Madrid win, 3.70–3.80 for a draw and 2.70 for a City win, with very high goal lines (over 2.5 goals around 1.50 and “both teams to score” close to 1.44 at the bookies).
Given this context and the current situation of both teams, I would go with the following:

BeniThe conservative one

Over 2.5 goals in the match. Odds 1.55

I really like this because the script for the match clearly points to an open contest. Madrid are averaging 2.4 goals per game in the Champions League, City 2.0, and both concede an average of 1. In addition, Madrid are coming into the game with an emergency defence and City have the second-best attack in the Premier League. I don’t see either side playing too cautiously: Madrid needs a morale boost and City knows that a draw doesn’t guarantee anything in the 36-team league table. I can really see a 2-1, 2-2 or even 3-1 result, where the pace and attacking quality of both sides tip the balance.

BetoThe bold one

X2 (City wins or draws) & over 2.5 goals. Odds 2.80

Here I am taking a clearer approach: I am confident that City will not lose. Guardiola’s team is in better form (WWWLW in their last five Premier League and Champions League games) and has Haaland, who leads the scoring charts among the major leagues. On the other hand, Madrid is under enormous pressure, with Xabi Alonso being questioned and a defence plagued by injuries that is forcing him to improvise in key positions. In my mind, the match looks very much like an exchange of blows in which City, due to their structure and physicality, will find it easier to sustain 90 minutes of back-and-forth play. If Madrid takes the lead, I wouldn’t rule out an English reaction; if City strikes first, the Whites’ defensive fragility could see the scoreboard open up even more. For all these reasons, I think X2 + over 2.5 is a very interesting way to take advantage of the combination of the visitors’ better form and a high-scoring match.