Europa League
2012-04-26 - Valencia vs Atletico Madrid
A Sports Betting Pick by ROzsolt
Football : Uefa Europa League SF, 2nd leg
Venue: Mestalla, Valencia
Thurday 26th April – Kickoff time: 21:05 GMT+1
Valencia
Valencia is still hoping to travel to Bucharest for the Europa League final despite conceding 4 goals (4-2) in the first leg of this tie. Their second goal scored in the injury time gives them hope and keeps this tie open for any outcome.
Los Che were looking good after the first half of the first leg as Jonas cancelled out Falcao’s early opener, but they were outplayed in the second half and conceded 3 goals. Ricardo Costa is the one who pulled one back in the injury time.
Valencia have never lost a European home game against Liga rivals, while Atletico are yet to win an European match on the road in Spain. Valencia has a 4-1-0 record against Spanish opponents.
However, Valencia faced Atletico in the quarter-finals of the 2009/2010 Europa League and the team from the capital was the one to progress on away goals, going on to beat Fulham in the final.
Unai Emery has 8 players who are one yellow card from a suspension, but that must be the least of his worries now.
Probable Valencia line-up :
Costa, Rami, Ruiz, Alba
Tino Costa, Topal
Feghouli, Jonas, Mathieu
Soldado
Atletico
Atletico is becoming a specialist of this competition, they’ve triumphed in 2010 in a final against Fulham and they are now extremely close to travel to Bucharest for another one.
Simeone’s team has a poor record when facing Spanish opponents away from home in European competitions though, with 4 defeats, one draw (against Valencia) and no victories. It’s a good thing they don’t need to win in order to progress.
Atletico come into the second leg on a ten game winning streak in this competition, since losing against Udinese in the group stage, which is impressive to say at least.
Miranda, Luis Perea and Diego are one yellow card from suspension, but Diego Simeone has no fresh injury concerns for this match.
Probable Atletico line-up :
Perea, Miranda, Dominguez, Filipe Luis
Gabi, Suarez
Adrian, Diego, Arda Turan
Falcao
The Betting Verdict
According to Valencia’s coach Unai Emery this is the biggest game of his career, for many players too. I’d say that Valencia is fully motivated to get a result here, even though progressing seems unlikely at the moment.
If Valencia manages to put their noses in front early on then who knows what can happen. However, Atletico scored 29 goals in the competition so Valencia might need more than two goals here in order to qualify.
I fancy a home win here, as Valencia have not lost in nine European home games and won their last five games at Mestalla, scoring four in each of their last two. I’m not saying that they are likely to qualify, but they can pull off a narrow win.
Roberto Soldado scored 17 goals this season in La Liga, which have taken Valencia to the third spot of the table, behind Real and Barca of course. I’d say that Valencia’s chances to qualify depend on his form so he really needs to steal the show tonight and I think he has the quality to do it.
The Pick :
Valencia 2-1 Atletico Madrid
BEST BETTING TIP :
Take Roberto Soldado to score at 2.30 at CoralConfidence: 7/10
