Fedar
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Posts posted by Fedar
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Re: First qualifying round, 2nd leg > 10-12 July Price on clean sheet for Metalurgs is getting up on bet365!!! It was 1.22 a few minutes ago, now it is 1.40. It is gettng pretty suspicious...
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Re: First qualifying round, 2nd leg > 10-12 July I don't know, but if the bookies think so, then it is right that valuing qualifying rounds in Europe are not their best faculty. Osijek is very mediocre Croatian team which very rarely finishes above 6-7th place, and which qualified in Europe only because they made it to the final of cup, where they got thrashed by Dinamo. They haven't played in Europe for 10 years. The record of Croatian teams, other than Dinamo and Haiduk, is not impressive at all in Europe.
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Re: First qualifying round, 2nd leg > 10-12 July Btw, anyone got the idea why betfair values Metalurgs clean-sheet vs. Fiorita at such price, since similar bets (Gomel and Osijek clean sheets) are priced much much lower - at 1.05. Is there something that we don't know about Metalurgs and Fiorita and somebody in the market is familiar with?!
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Re: First qualifying round, 2nd leg > 10-12 July
Alex, I also watched the game and just wanted to add that the Andorrans were playing pretty rude in defense and nearly injured some Twente player. If they do it again at home soil, I am confident Twente won't be risking some bad injuries just for the purpose of scoring 5 or 6 past them.Its a good call and you got an excellent price, I watched the entire first leg and placed a daft in-play bet on FC Twente -2AH first half handicap, I got my stake back after they scored two goals in a minute but it was a close run thing, at one point I was convinced it was going to lose. Santa Coloma were crap as you expect, Twente played at half pace and kicked on when the Andorran's tired in the second half. Below is Twente's squad for the game, the only missing from the first leg is the guy who scored two goals in the first half and looked pretty decent all round actually. Selectie FC Twente: Boschker, Fernandes, Bednarek, Breukers, Wisgerhof, Gortemaker, Röseler, Kuiper, Brama, Janssen, Promes, Hölscher, Plet, Born, John, Verhoek. I'm personally convinced the Andorrans won't score so I've taken under 5 goals at 1.8 with bet365, but I'll certainly be covering 5-0, 6-0 and 7-0, so I suppose this is a way of me playing Twente to keep a clean sheet as no bookie is brave enough to cover that market. -
Re: First qualifying round, 2nd leg > 10-12 July
I think Cliftonville will go with 5 defenders and try to hold Kalmar to 0-0 up until half time!! Cliftonville play on an artificial pitch which may not suit Kalmar for the home game! Northern Irish teams dont normally do well in euro away games. Cliftonville have a decent forward who in Boyce who came on as a sub in the second half and got their goal' date=' he was in Werder Bremen 2nd team last season, the rest of the players shouldnt be up to good standards. Kalmar are on a bit of a bad run in league, but think will take this 1-0 or 2-0[/quote'] Good info! :clap I actually watched Cliftonville against CSKA Sofia two years ago. They almost beat us in NI(very difficult 2:1 win for us), but they were pretty sh*te in Sofia and got easily defeated in a training tempo. I don't expect them to have improved much, and Northern Irish teams away record is abysmal. Still Kalmar is a bit weaker than CSKA Sofia. I don't know if it's worth it at current price. Especially remembering how Irish Shamrock kicked Partizan out of Europe last year. I know ROI football is a bit better than Northern Irish, but still that game is like a warning sign (they did not do bad in the Europe League groups either). -
Re: First qualifying round, 2nd leg > 10-12 July Guys, anyone from Sweden with more in-depth info on Kalmar?! I was quite surprised they lost the first leg vs. Cliftonville. At first sight, it seems that they should destroy them in Sweden. However, I don't know much about their quality at the moment. Also some insight on Cliftonville will be appreciated.
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Re: First qualifying round, 1st leg > 3-5 July Mtom, you have given absolutely great contribution with this opinion. That's what I was aiming at - trying to get as many opinions from insiders as possible, since getting information about some of these teams is a real challenge. The remark about the professional status of Hibs is not cocky at all, and I think it does matter. It surely means higher fitness level and more quality. I did some check-up myself on this tie (because I knew nothing about Hibs and little about Sarajevo), and after my research, I also think that it is not worth betting for home win or handicaps at this price. Sarajevo is much better and will surely qualify, but it is not unlikely that we gonna see some tight games. As you said, Hibs are the second best team in Malta, and Valletta yesterday won with horrendous score. Maybe Hibs are now at the level of Welsh and some Northern Irish teams. Sarajevo on the other hand are tough and ambitious, but after checking their performance, I see that they tend to be very under-ish. They are stable in their back, but they often have difficulties finding the net. And with guest-team probably parking the bus and well organized in defense, even a 0:0 draw won't be unlikely (like yesterdays Linfield -Torshavn).
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Re: First qualifying round, 1st leg > 3-5 July Pg_Yid, you made a very good point that sometimes smaller teams would be more willing to crush minnows than strongest teams. I would like to add, actually repeat, that I still believe that in this respect it is very important whether the favorite team is under-ish or over-ish. Because, for instance, Fulham are known for scoring little and playing tight, and it is somehow not surprising that a team, which is used throughout the years to being more defensive and compact, once it goes to Europe, it does not all of a sudden starts to play with three forwards and goes pushing for tones of goals. That's exactly what makes me think than Twente will probably destroy them - the Entschede teams is very offensive, scores a lot, and it frequently crashes some weaker teams in the Eredivisie with more than 4 goals. Especially in the first half of last season, I remember the usual coefficients for "over 2.5" at Twente home games were priced ridiculously at around 1.20. I have reasons to believe that since Twente does this regularly in their home division, I don't see why they would spare the Andorrans, especially given that now they are very fresh, and Twente tends to be stronger and scores more in the beginning and first half of season.
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Re: First qualifying round, 1st leg > 3-5 July
I know I am turning into a little Brooke in this topic, but I am tempted to answer your questions. :) First, about Renova. Since I bet a lot on preliminary rounds of Europe League and CL, I have noticed that the bookies tend to do a little over-estimation of the odds for smallest teams. For example, these days I put bets on friendly games of top Belgian sides against third-division opponents, and I see that the odds there are slightly lower than those against weakest teams in Euro tournaments. If we assume that the bookies price those friendlies correctly, than they must surely over-estimate teams like Libertas, because: 1. I am confident that third-division Belgian sides are stronger than any San Marino team. 2. Those are friendlies, while Renova-Libertas is an official game. 3. Usually the Belgian friendlies are played at the venue of the low division team, while this game is in Macedonia. So, in brief, I think that the bookies have given a little of over-estimation to Libertas, maybe purely because it is Euro tournament. If it was a pre-season friendly between teams with such class gap, I feel that the odds for Renova would have been around 1.040-1.050. Second, about Twente's clean sheets. I do think this is a good bet. I say this with the remark that in the pre-Euro 2012 friendlies, a lot of people on these forum got hurt from such kinds of bets. However, this ain't friendly, and it is very likely that the guests will cross the center-line of the field just several times for the whole game. You can estimate yourself what chance of scoring against Twente this renders. However, I still think that I will rather go for total goals scored or asian handicap here, because it is still more secure bet. I just don't see how Twente won't score at least 4-5 goals, while it is still possible that the Andorrans sneak some accidental goal in the end, especially if the result already is terrifying. I've failed dramatically with bets in similar situation in the past - in games with extreme difference in class, I decided that there is more value in the clean-sheet for the favorite market, rather than the big Asian Handicap. In the end, it turned out that the favorite team scored 6-7 goals, and let a consolation goal in the last minutes for the opponents, which rendered my bet losing.Renova is in the top of Macedonian football for some years now and I believe they'll take the game against Libertas seriously and try to finish off the job in the 1st leg. They've had a great end to the domestic season which finished a month ago and surprisingly won the cup to secure European place. Its interesting that their opponents Libertas are the runners up of San Marino and Tre Penne are the champs. Tre Penne were humiliated 7-0 away at Dudelange in the qualification opener today so I really expect to see Renova easily outplaying second best team in San Marino. I'm pretty sure there is value in that -1 EH bet for Renova and I am tempted to go with higher stake at slightly better price locally but I hardly ever take a price below 1,50. My question is how would personally priced that ,what are your fair odds? What's your fair odds for Twente to keep a clean sheet? Im tempted with that as well. Thank you and good luck! I'll update the situation in Renova camp tomorrow. -
It is a bit late, since most of the games have passed already (one group left to be played), but I found these games to be quite predictable, and giving the opportunity for some gift-money with absolutely horrendous teams like the Philippines and the Maldives. We have only Group E left to be played. From first sight I spot the two super-favorites - Japan and Australia, and the teams who will be the boxing bag of the group - Macao and East Timor. My only problem is that I could find next to nothing about these age groups since this is the first year when the tournament is played, and U-22 is not an usual football age group (it is rather U21 or U23). I managed to get some info on soccerway about the U21 and U23 of Macao and East Timor, as well as the first teams. Their scores seems just terrible. The youth national formations actually haven't played against a foreign side, but only against local club teams, and the results are really bad. I have strong reasons to expect that both Australia and Japan would score at least 5 past Macao and East Timor, and it is not unlikely that Singapore and Indonesia do something similar. However, I would strongly appreciate some input from Asian people who have more info on these.
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Re: First qualifying round, 1st leg > 3-5 July I know I seem to be over-spamming the topic, but since they are so many games in this round which supposedly could hide value, I am looking for input from people with more insider info. Besides the games discussed above, I've singled out two others which seem tempting: 1. Santa Coloma (Andorra) - Osiek Croatia Nothing much to say, another amateur Andorran side. It is interesting though, that the opponent is a Croatian team, and they have reputation of being very tough and not forgiving against such sides. It is currently priced 1.10 and the -1.5 AH is 1.35. While most experienced players might laugh at these prices, I think that sometimes value in the small numbers can be actually very substantial. Of course, since it would require a bigger stake, I would have to research it more closely tomorrow, but at first sight I see about 95% chance that Osiek covers the AH, and 1.35 clearly represents a smaller percentage, dedicated by bookies. 2. Saraevo - Hibernians. I have to remind that Maltese teams, although still amateurs and outsiders, are at least a level or two above those San Marino and Andorra. Still, I think the bookies have a little under-estimated the Bosnian side at 1.15 for a pure home win. Saraevo is one of the two most popular and strongest Bosnian teams. They have class, they have ambition to try to go to at least the play-off round, and they will have good support from the crowd. I don't expect crushing and humiliation here, but a classy and convenient 3:0 win should not be a problem for Saraevo.
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Re: First qualifying round, 1st leg > 3-5 July
Well, as I said I have to check it again. But it seems to me that these are second-leg games (probably after big defeats in the first)?! If it is so, then it changes the situation a lot, because it is usually the first game where these football midgets get the real humiliation, while in the second leg they might sometimes sneak a decent result. Anyway, it is still important to consider the opponent, and it is interesting to note that the pure class of the opponent is not so important (as every team is supposedly way better than those amateurs), but rather its approach and goal-scoring habits. If I go back to your examples, I must say that Finish and Cypriot teams, while maybe better than Renova (APOEL certainly is) are notorious for being extremely under-ish. If you bet on these two championships, you will notice the disproportionally large percentage of "unders". So, it is not so surprising that they might spare some goals against the midgets. In contrast, Eastern European teams tend to get nastier against this kind of opposition. For instance, today Gomel (Belarus) scored whole six away at Faroe Islands (which are way better than San Marino).There are two examples of losing by two goals against half-decent sides: Tampere United 2-0 Murata APOEL 3-1 Murata This is away from home, at home they have had much better results, but still defeats by and large. But I agree with the gist of your post and thanks for the info on Renova, as I know nothing about them which can't be learned by statistics. -
Re: First qualifying round, 1st leg > 3-5 July
As far as I know Mura played reserve squad in that game. I personally wouldn't bet on us to win. Last season FC Baku had a really good squad and good coach' date=' but they were really poor when playing against top sides in our league.[/quote'] Mustafa, I keep a very close eye to this game, since the winner faces my CSKA Sofia next. Actually I am surprised that you say that Baku played poor. I checked that they have quite substantial budget for Eastern European standards (of course, not Russia and Ukraine included), and they have 5-6 internationals with very impressive CVs. Adding to this the unbearable heat in Baku, the boiling atmosphere at the stadium (I remember it from 2009 match Baku-Levski), and the traditionally very strong home performance of Caucasian sides, I see this game as a very easy home victory. My only reservation is that I know next to nothing about Mura, and I've noticed that Slovenian teams (as well as the national team) should not be underestimated. -
Re: First qualifying round, 1st leg > 3-5 July
I know I might be repeating something I already stressed in the previous post, but I myself estimate the chance that -2AH becomes a losing bet in this game as less than 2-3%. I have to check again, but I think that San Marino teams have hardly ever avoided an away defeat with less than 3-4 goals, regardless of opponent, unless they play against the likes of Andorra and Lichtenstein. Macedonian league might not be an indicator for strength, but surely their teams are several levels above the San Marinese. Maybe it is worth mentioning that Renova is more like an Albanian team (the supporters and most of the players are Albanian). I've seen them two years ago in a friendly against my local CSKA Sofia - they are nothing special, but they are surely professionals, unlike those from San Marino.Renova vs AC Libertas Renova -1EH @ 1.28 (Bwin) 10/10 Asides from Twente vs Santa Coloma, this is the biggest mismatch of the round. Not that Renova are particularly good, this is a bet against the Sanmarinnese side. Teams from San Marino have a very poor record at this level, as anyone with an interest in the CL/EL qualifying rounds probably already knows! Out of their last 15 away games in Europe, teams from San Marino have lost 14 times, and 13 times they've lost by two clear goals. The time they avoided defeat was against an Andorran side, so can be discounted, and there was also a narrow 2-1 defeat to Valletta of Malta, but that was when Valletta were already 3-0 up from the away leg. Unfortunately, the bookies are aware of this record so the prices were not as good as I was expecting...not as good as in previous years. This 1.28 has been around a few days. I immediately thought it was too high, but wanted to wait for the Asian Handicaps. Unfortunately 365 are on top of things, offering -2.5 @ 1.5 which is marginal value if any, considering the Macedonian league is not the strongest. -2AH is 1.26 so you're obviously much better off going with Bwin. Whilst not a complete cert, I think this is very likely to come in, considering home advantage and the fact that Renova will want to kill off the game before the second leg. Whether or not it's a massive score depends on how early they score, as Libertas will no doubt look to put men behind the ball and get an unlikely 0-0. But with the difference in fitness, Renova being full-time and Libertas part-time, I think they should definitely cover the handicap here. -
Re: First qualifying round, 1st leg > 3-5 July
Well, not quite correct already to put San Marino and Andorra in the same pocket with Faroe Island and Malta (and also Luxembourg). In reality, Faroe Island teams have shown some progress recently and at least give some effort to their opponents. Luxembourg teams are even better and I expect that soon they will be able to throw some surprises. On the opposite, teams from San Marino and Andorra are totally crappy and clueless. I think that every handicap up to -4 for their opponent is reasonable, even if the opponent is a lower class team from, say, Macedonia or Latvia. I realize that Twente will be playing in a walking tempo, but even so, the Andoran team is probably at the level of a high-school Dutch team, so I am pretty sure the minimum score-line here is 5:0. And it can reach up to double digit, depending on Twente's mood. Unfortunately, most betting options are restricted before the game, and they will probably be open for live betting. I guess the handicaps will be very limited (maybe starting from Twente -4.5). I would personally take Twente -4.5 if it is priced at around 1.45-1.50 and I do think it could be value.Here we go again! Have only taken two bets so far, bwin were more than generous to offer 1.44 on FC Twente keeping a clean sheet against Santa Coloma from Andorra. They were also offering 1.42 on both teams scoring - no which I had a piece of after using up my maximum stake, unfortunately they have since removed both from their betting markets. Santa Coloma only won 1 of their last 8 games in all comps at the end of last season which is hardly impressive in the Andorran league, the scoreline could be anything depending on how much Twente want it. I remember backing Fulham heavily at this stage last season when they were playing some team from the Faroe Islands, Fulham won 3-0 but rarely got out of first gear and I think this one will probably be much the same. At this stage you are usually betting against teams from certain countries ie San Marino, Andorra, Malta etc. -
Re: Portugal v Spain > June 27
I just read it and got immediately another issue - as far as I know, the bookies might punish you (return your stakes or even close accounts) if they catch you arbitraging. I don't know - this game is going to be extremely huge market and probably the probability to get caught arbitraging is very low.if you are thinking of doing such a bet then you should REALLY have a look at the germany v italy thread in there you will find that MPLouis has outlined an arb on the possession market which absolutely can not lose and guarantees a profit -
Re: Portugal v Spain > June 27
Was wondering about the same bet (see my post further up the page). I think some bookies use uefa statistics. Btw- if you do this bet' date=' it is 1.10 with Bwin. The difference in price could be important if you are lumping a big stake on.[/quote'] I know, but they closed my account and don't let me get a new one. -
Re: Portugal v Spain > June 27 I have an alternative question regarding this game. I am seriously thinking of doing a big mug bet - taking the "Spain to have more possession" bet at the ridiculous price of 1.07, but with serious stake on it. It seems like a risk-free money (despite how false this concept in betting looks like), because apart from Spain's tremendous possession record (unbeaten for years!), Portugal does not seem to be good in possession - they gave possession in all their three group games, including the one against Denmark. However, I am wondering which indicator the bookies use to measure possession? Because soccerway does not seem like a serious enough source about it.
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Re: Top Goal-Scorer Question Thanks for the clarification guys. The thing is that I believe the goal scorer will definitely be either Ronaldo, or Gomez, or both. The price for each 2.75. It is also very likely that they share the prize. What happens if I place, say, 100 pounds on each, and they finish together at top? Does it mean that i get: - from Cristiano: 50 pounds times 2.75 (the other 50 pounds lost) plus - from Gomez: 50 pounds times 2.75?
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Re: Portugal v Spain > June 27 No offense meant, was just kiddin'. I was being ironic because suggesting Spain's victory is one thing (probably more likely), but exaggerating the weaknesses of the opponent is something completely different. Because from your post it did not even slightly seem that Portugal is a good team, which they certainly are.
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What happens if you pick, for example, Cristiano as top goal-scorer of the tournament, and in the end he shares the first place with someone else (e.g. Gomez). Does your bet still win or it has to be that you pick the single top goal-scorer?
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Re: Portugal v Spain > June 27
Mate, I thought that Portugal is a decent team, but after reading your argumentation, I changed my mind because now it seems obvious that they are just a bunch of useless pricks, who did not even deserve to play in big tournaments. :DSpain - 0.5 @ 2.00 bet365 What I see looking at these two teams is all the talent and ability heavily on the side of Spain. We all know about them let's look at Portugal. They beat the Czechs who were a disgrace and didn't deserve to be in the Euro so that means absolutely nothing. They always look for Ronaldo to do something, to change the game for them. But Ronaldo is a winger who's game is based on confidence...and can make a strong individual impact in games. He isn't the type of player like Silva, Xavi, Alonso, Iniesta etc who have the ability to make everyone else AROUND them better. And if you look around the Portugese team there are a few rubbish players who are just passengers in the game like veloso (custodio should be the holding midfielder instead) and Postiga (only there because portugese don't have any good no. 9s). Pepe can be sent off at any given moment, Coentrao is a dirty street rat type player who can get burnt if the referee catches his little dog acts in defence, Nani is mostly effective against weak and nieve defences who struggle with pace but is rendered less (not in-) effective when faced with class defenders. (He is the second choice after Valencia and Young). Portugal will get tired from chasing shadows and this will result in them conceding free kicks and Spain gettting in behind them as the game wears on. Meireles, Veloso are lesser players than Mouthinho but even he isn't on the level of the Spanish central men. Ultimately Portugal lash out and commit acts of stupidity when faced with these tough situations against top level opposition because they don't have an old experienced leader on the field to put ppl in their place. Ronaldo could spit the dummy at any time and Xavi and co know this and will play to it. e:ok -
Re: Portugal v Spain > June 27
I can see an open attacking game. The Portuguese won't be defensive in my opinion' date=' they tried that against Germany and it didn't work. As we saw, when Croatia had a go at Spain, they had them on the rack for a lot of the game and created a lot of chances. With the amount of shots Ronnie has in a match, i see a lot of them deflect off defender's out for corners. Spain try to walk the ball into the net too, which means we see a lot of play by the by-line.[/quote'] I really don't think so. Ronaldo and Nani might be great and could certainly cause lots of problems for the Spanish defence, but it is just that I don't see how they will manage to have the "technological" time to develop the number of end-to-end attacks in order to achieve enough corners, considering the Spanish style. Also, "I did not work against Germany" is not very convincing argument - first, you never know what would have happened if Portugal was more open (probably an easy and substantial German victory), and second, Portugal was so close to getting a draw (which was the aim for this game). I am pretty confident Portugal will be defensive - they played like this in each single knock-out game against top opponents in the last 8-10 years, and I see no logic to expect them to change it, especially against the world champions. -
Re: Portugal v Spain > June 27
I myself would not be so enthusiastic about combining the average corners per game of each team into an expected total. Maybe it would work if we considered two teams practicing direct and quick football, but when Spain is on the field it becomes very dubious. Let's have a look at the Spain-France game. The French had just 3 corners. While in the group phase, they averaged 9 corners per game. It is three times less their average! And you all know what is the reason - the branded Spanish style of passing, possession and non-direct football. Let's see last official game b/n the sides: Spain-Portugal at 1/8 finals in SA. 6 corners for the Spanish, just 3 for Portugal. I don't see the game this week to be much different than this one. Very tight Portuguese defense, waiting patiently to surprise Spain on the counter-attack, and slow, ball-possessing Spanish sides with little direct attempts to shoot at the goal. This does not smell like many corners to me. Btw, anybody with a good explanation for the so-many corners of Portugal vs. Germany?! I watched the game, but i don't remember why so many corner-kicks occur. Did they happen over only several attacks or no?!Portugal had 11 corners against Germany, 6 against Denmark, 7 against Holland and 11 against the Czech Republic. That is an average of around 9 corners per match. Spain had 7 against Italy, 7 against Ireland, 11 against Croatia and 7 against France. That is an average of 8 corners per match. Add the averages and the combined average is around 17 corners. I expect this to be a very attack-minded game, and i think there is great value in 13 or more corners @ 2.68. 13 or more corners @ 2.68 Betfair
Second qualifying round, 1st leg > 17-18 July
in Champions League Predictions
Posted
Re: Second qualifying round, 1st leg > 17-18 July Did a quick research and several games seems to stand out: 1. Ulysses Yerevan - Sheriff Sheriff DNB @ 1.61 I don't know why the away win is priced so high and I expect it will fall by kick-off. Armenian teams performance in Europe is really poor. For the last three years their home record in Euro tournaments was 0-3-6 and they hadn't eliminated a single opponent. Only this summer they managed to pass through Faroe Islands's Streymur (after losing in the first game in F.I. by 1:3 and only managing to qualify on away goal basis) and Rudar (Montenegro). Ulysses in particular is relatively new team with little experience in Europe. They participated only twice, were eliminated in both occasions, and the only decent result they managed to get was a 0:0 draw at home vs. Bnei Iehuda from Israel. Last year they got kicked out by Ferencvaros after two defeats (0:2 and 0:3). Sheriff, on the other hand, has been showing a steady movement up the curve for the last five or so years. They by far the best and richest team in their country, attract the best talent (including many foreign players), and participate on a regular basis in Europe. They played twice in the group stages of Europa League and managed a few impressive results (e.g. eliminated Dinamo Zagreb, defeated Dynamo Kyiv and Twente). Indeed, their away form does not seem that convincing, but still I think that the class differential here is significant. However, for the sake of risk-minimazing, I would suggest taking the DNB Sheriff option at 1.61. This bet would have won 6 times, be returned 3 times, and lost 0 times in the last three years in competitions, involving Armenian teams. I would prefer this safer option for two reasons: - if they don't have the lead by the 60th minute, Sheriff might settle for a draw, having in mind that they can decide the tie at home. - Very hot weather and bad pitch conditions might limit the play of the higher class team - Sheriff. As a whole, I don't give more than 5-10% chance that Sheriff loses the game, and not more than 25-30% for a draw. Which means that if you are a more risk-prone player, the clear away victory bet is also a good option. 2. Skenderbeg (Albania) - Debreceni (Hungary) Debreceni 1.75 Another price which seems to me like a bookie's error and which I expect to drop soon (it had already gone down slightly from 1.80). Debreceni is a very experienced euro-participant, who has been dominating Hungarian football for over a decade. They are a very decent middle-class European team who managed to participate in both CL and Europa League group stages. It is interesting that they rarely have any problems at all when they play lower rank teams in the tournaments. Debreceni have several Hungarian internationals and also decent foreign players. I've little to say about the Albanian side, but the performance of Albanian teams in Europe speaks for itself, including the games from past two weeks. I myself would not give more than 1.30-1.40 to any moderately decent team to win a game away vs. any Albanian team. I am expecting that the Hungarians will easily cover a handicap here, as well, but at 1.75 for clear win, I think it is more than enough of a price for a more risk-averse player. 3. Dudelange - Red Bull Salzburg Red Bull @ 1.25 Some might call it "a mug punt", but stats don't say so - for the last ten years, Dudelange lost 9 games at home, drew 0, and won just 3 (two of them against Santa Coloma Andorra and this year against Tre Penne; the third is a seemingly prestigious victory against Danish Randers by 2:1, but after losing 1:6 in the first leg). If we don't account the victories against minnows and the one in an already decided tie, we get an abysmal home statistics, attained for the most parts against weaker teams than RB. The Austrians are affluent and good side, who, nevertheless, haven't yet made it to the group stages of the CL, despite their funding and ambitions. I think RB will take the game seriously and try to finish it quickly with a class. Handicap is also very likely here. But even a clear victory is a good bet, because the 1.25 price does not reflect in my opinion the actual chance of RB not winning this game (in my opinion - less than 5%). 4. Zilina - Ironi Kiryat Shimona Zilina @ 2.00 or Zilina DNB @ 1.50 Not much to say here, but I think that the bookies have attributed the overall good performance of few Israeli teams in Europe to an inexperienced side with just second participations in European tournaments. My observations are that experience is a crucial factor in Europe, and it could take a lot of time for Ironi Kiryat to achieve the European standards Maccabi and Hapoel Tel Aviv. I had a look in their team list and I see almost entirely Israeli-origin squad plus a player who was just bought from our local championship - Darko Tasevsky - not a bad lad, but not quite impressive. I have the feeling that Ironi Kiryat are a little accidentally in this tournament and this would be quickly and timely fixed. Zilina are one of those stable and improving Central European teams. They have in their record both CL and Europa League group stages. In my opinion they are huge favorite in this tie. Given that they are very much "win-at-home side" in their local league, I think they will try their best to decide the tie in Slovakia. 5. AEL - Linfield Hastgill has already done a perfect analysis here and I could only support his view on this game In the end, just quickly I would like to mention a few games that seem easy at first sight but could turn into banana peel slips. 1. BATE - Vardar Home win is priced at 1.12. In reality, BATE's home form for the past month has been really bad - they failed to win in their local league for the third time in a row at home. And their biggest problem lately has been scoring goals - when they manage a home-win, they rarely exceed one or two goals per game. I expect the Macedonians to be very tight in the back and looking to surprise BATE on the counter-attack. I wouldn't bet for a Vardar handicap here, because this game can go in different directions, but I think that it is risky, and I would never have priced it at 1.12 ( 1.35-1.40 looks like a more precise tag for this game to me). 2. Molde -Ventspils I don't know much about Molde, but once again, like in the case with Kiryat Shmona, I have the feeling that the bookies attach the overall success record of Norwegian club football (mainly due to Rosenborg) to a relatively inexperienced team like Molde. It is very interesting that in their last two performances in Europe (2006 and 2010) Molde faced Latvian teams. They eliminated Sconto and Jelgava with lots of difficulties. In 2006 they drew 0:0 vs. Skonto and managed to qualify after winning 2:1 in Latvia. Two years ago, they lost in Latvia by 2:1 to Jeglava, and won at home by 1:0 with a last-minute goal. To me this record does not seem like a 1.20 price. It is very likely that if Molde does not get a quick goal, the game might turn very nasty for them. 3. Slovan Liberec - Shakhtar Karagandy Teams from Kazakhstan have turned into very very tough opponents in the last few years. Shakhtar are currently the best team in the country, and the league has been playing for months already, so the team should be in perfect fitness. Slovan comes from a strong football country, but they are not amongst the traditionally best teams in Czech Republic. They had one good performance in Europe in 2006/07 when they played in the group stages of UEFA Cup, other than that, their story in Europe is usually being eliminated after one or two rounds. They are surely the favorite in this tie, but I don't think that 1.20 reflect the real class differential between the teams. I would have priced Slovan at around 1.65-1.70.