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Olympiacos with 6 back-to-back Champions League home wins

Bayern are the heavy favorite today but Olympiacos are always a tricky opponent home. They beat Juventus and Atletico here last season and have every right to hope for a good result

Olympiacos finished in spot 3 last season, in a group with Malmo, Juventus and Atletico Madrid. They went on to play Europa League but crashed out immediately to Dnipro, who went on to reach the final. 

Olympiacos' group this season consists of similar teams - there are two mighty opponents (Arsenal and Bayern) and another underdog. Home games will be crucial in Olympiacos' bid to advance through, which means they need to get off to a good start and get points against Bayern and win the two games against Dinamo. 

Everything started off great for Olymiacos in the Greek championship. They won the first three games with a 8-2 goal difference and already managed to take the top spot in the table. But, the Greek championship games are well below Champions League games in quality, meaning this is actually the first proper game for Olympiacos this season. 

- We are not thinking about the upper hand or the shortcomings. We'll open the game wanting to reach our goal as easily as possible. We can play teams who have good possession but when an opportunity presents itself, we will have to seize it - Olympiacos' coach Marco Silva said and added:

- We completed all the analyses and studied Bayern very well. We know about their injury-struggles but ever great team has great alternatives for the injured players. 

Olympiacos will have to do without two midfielders, Luka Milivojevic, who is suspended since last season, and Anderas Bouhalakis, who has been injured for a while now.

Even though Bayern has a clean sheet, they are not as convincing in Bundesliga as they were in previous seasons. They played Augsburg last Saturday and lagged behind for a long time, managing to make a comeback in the very final part of the game, partly through their own efforts and partly because the ref called a penalty and later admitted he made a mistake. 

- The first half was one of our worst halves since I got here. We were slow, the body language was bad. We got better in the second half and I hope we can use this as a lesson for the future. We have to fight throughout the whole match for our fans - Guardiola said. 

The Champions League title is why Guardiola was hired at Bayern. It's crazy to say that someone has to win it, but after only two semifinals in the past two seasons, the Catalan coach really needs to get his team to the next level now, otherwise his stint at Bayern will be deemed a failure, even though they dominate the Bundesliga. Whether a coach at Bayern is successful isn't determined based on whether he won the German championship as that goes without saying.

Olympiacos are just another hurdle they need to jump over on their path towards greater things coming next spring. That, however, doesn't mean Bayern are convinced they will get the three points at Peareus:

- We have to be focused and determined. We cannot underestimate Olympiacos. Some teams did just that and that back fired. We have to prevent it from happening to us. It would be important to start with a win - Bayern's president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said. Guardiola doesn't expect an easy task either:

- I expect Olympiacos to be at their best. Th fact they won the last 6 Champions League home games says it all.

The line-up from the Augsburg game should not change, but it is more likely that Bayern now go with 4 players in defense. Gotze is back on the team, while Ribery, Robben, Bastuber and Benatia all remain unavailable. 

It's hard to go against the statistics, and this is what it says: Referee Velasco Carballo likes to give bookings. In 2015 he officiated in 23 games, and in 21 of those he gave 4 or more bookings. But he is not on the margin often, at 15 games he showed 6 ore more yellow cards. Olympiakos played 8 games in Europe last year, at seven of them there were four or more yellow cards. At Bayern's European games we passed the 3,5 margin in nine out of ten cases. Domestic competitions spoil the average a bit, but we should take into account their domination over their competition. And Bayern still went over in three of four Bundesliga rounds. I found last year's statistics for Olympiakos' games against the best team (top 6 in the league table), and it says that the over 3.5 yellow cards was at 8 out of 10 games. Bayern shouldn't be as powerful as they used to be, the Greeks definitely see their chance in that and they will fight hard. All of this is in favor of the fact that we will see at least four yellow cards.