18 September 2019
THE FIFTH IN UCL: Juventus and Atletico Madrid will compete for the fifth time in the Champions League. They met in the 2014/15 group stage (1-0 Atletico won in Spain, 0-0 in Turin) before the Bianconeri eliminated the Spanish in the Last 16 of the previous Champions League campaign, overturning the 0-2 defeat from the first leg in Spain, with a 3-0 win back in Italy.
ITALIANS IN SPAIN: Italian teams have won only four of the 27 away games in Spain in the Champions League (3D, 20L). In any case, the last three victories were all by Juventus: in Seville in 2016/17, at Real Madrid in 2017/18 and in Valencia in 2018/19. Atletico Madrid have lost only one of their last eight Champions League games against Italian teams (5W, 2D), but that single defeat came against Juventus in the Round of 16 last March (0-3); the last Atletico match in the Champions League.
THE MISTER IN EUROPE: Juventus coach Maurizio Sarri won the 2018/19 Europa League with Chelsea. Only three coaches have won the Uefa Cup / Europa League and then the Champions Cup / Champions League in two consecutive seasons (Rafael Benitez, Jose Mourinho and Bob Paisley).
CLEAN SHEET FOR ATLETICO: From the first coaching match of Atletico Madrid in Simeone's Champions League match in September 2013, the Colchoneros recorded more clean sheets than any other Champions League team (34).
WITHOUT GRIEZMANN: Atletico Madrid will play for the first time in the Champions League without Antoine Griezmann since 2013/14. Between goals and assists, the Frenchman took part in 54% of Atletico's goals in the competition (19 goals, seven assists) between September 2015 and March 2019.
DIEGO COSTA 9 OUT OF 13: Diego Costa has scored nine goals in 13 games with Atletico Madrid in the Champions League, averaging a goal every 99 minutes and converting 26% of the shots on goal. At Chelsea, he scored only two goals in 15 Champions League games, with an average of one goal every 586 minutes- JOAO FELIX: On the day of the match, Atletico striker Joao Felix will be 19 and 312 days old. Should he score, he would become the fifth youngest Portuguese player to score in the Champions League after Miguel (17 years 327 days), Gonçalo Guedes (18 years 350 days), Manuel Fernandes (19 years 255 days) and Hugo Viana (19 years 302 days). Cristiano Ronaldo scored his first goal in the Champions League at 22 and 64 days.
CR BEST: Cristiano Ronaldo is the best scorer in the Champions League (126, excluding qualifiers) and he has scored in more than half of the 162 appearances in the competition (82 different matches): another record. CR7 has scored 25 career goals against Atletico, including a hat-trick last season: only against Sevilla (27) did he score more goals in all competitions.
