Maccabi Haifa vs Juventus

Underperforming Juventus take a trip to the Sammy Ofer Stadium to encounter Maccabi Haifa in a must-win Champions League showdown.

There’s not much Maccabi Haifa can do to improve their hopes of progressing beyond the Champions League group stages for the first time in their third appearance since the start of the new millennium. Having lost each of their opening three Group H outings, the Israeli champions enter this matchday nailed to the bottom of the standings. By extension, the ‘Greens’ have lost their last nine Champions League matches and could become the fifth side in the competition’s history to suffer 10+ defeats in a row. Since beating Manchester United in 2002, Haifa have lost four consecutive Champions League games, failing to get on the scoresheet in three of them. Additionally, they’ve found themselves on the losing side in all three previous European meetings with Juventus.

In the meantime, Juventus head into proceedings on the back of a dreadful 2-0 derby defeat to fellow Serie A rivals AC Milan at the weekend, knowing another sub-par result could prove detrimental to their hopes of advancing to the Champions League knockouts. After losing their opening two Group H outings via an identical 2-1 scoreline, Juventus, inspired by Angel Di Maria’s hat-trick of assists, thumped Haifa 3-1 last week. However, without a clean sheet in five successive Champions League fixtures for the first time since 2013, ‘I Bianconeri’ cannot afford to underestimate their hosts. Moreover, Massimiliano Allegri’s men have won none of their last three Champions League away games (D1, L2), including a 2-1 defeat at PSG on matchday one. As a result, they’re staring down the barrel of multiple Champions League group stage losses for the first time since 2014/15.

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