River Plate (Montevideo) vs Palmeiras Betting Tips and Predictions

They progressed impressively in the 1st Round by beating Universidad Chile 2-0 on aggregate. That came courtesy of a strong performance and 2-0 home win in the 1st Leg prior to a stubborn defensive effort to seal a 0-0 draw in the return. They ought to take great confidence from that win into the group and will fancy their chances here despite being considered underdogs against Palmeiras.

River Plate were beaten 3-0 at home by Nacional at the weekend but rested several players in anticipation of this game and are clearly determined to make an impression in this tournament.

Palmeiras are probably the weakest of the Brazilian teams in the tournament having only finished 9th in the Brazilian Serie A last year. They qualified thanks to their Copa do Brasil win but have made a slow start to 2016 taking just 5 points from their opening 4 games in Sao Paulo’s regional Paulista.

They’ve not played in the Libertadores since 2013 but virtually their entire squad has changed since then so they don’t have much more continental experience than their opponents. They’ll be hoping to do a bit better than their recent showings in this competition and they’ve not scored a goal in any of their last 6 away Libertadores fixtures.

This isn’t likely to be a hugely high-scoring game with River Plate likely to adopt a similar approach to the one they employed in the last round. Palmeiras aren’t an entirely convincing outfit and the value here appears to be backing the Uruguayans at 8/13 to get at least a draw.

With home advantage and the excitement of their first Libertadores group game, they may even be able to just sneak the win and you can back them at 15/2 to win 1-0.