EUROPA LEAGUE BETTING PICK - DINAMO BUCURESTI V METALIST KHARKIV

Europa League

2012-08-23 - Dinamo Bucuresti vs Metalist Kharkiv

A Sports Betting Pick by ROzsolt

Dinamo Bucuresti v Metalist Kharkiv
Football : Europa League play-offs
Venue: National Arena, Bucharest
Thursday 23th August – Kickoff time: 20:30 GMT+2

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Dinamo Bucuresti (Romania)

After the friendly game against Barcelona, Romanian Cup winners Dinamo will start playing in competitive games against European opposition, hosting Metalist Harkov in the Europa League trying to avoid another humiliating early elimination.

I wouldn’t say that being eliminated by Metalist would be humiliating, the Ukrainians are stronger on paper than Dinamo, but the “Red Dogs” are famous in Romania for being eliminated by all kind of exotic teams in the early stages of the competitions.

Last season Dinamo was eliminated by another Ukrainian team (Vorskla Poltava) in the same stage of the competition with 3-5 on aggregate. Since 2007, Dinamo suffered defeats in two legged ties against teams like Elfsborg, NEC Nijmegen and Hajduk Split.

Dinamo is coming after a poor result against Concordia Chiajna (0-0), but the good news for them is that they could use the newcomer Edgar Alvarez who managed to recover from an injury.

Metalist Kharkiv (Ukraine)

Metalist finished third in Ukraine for the sixth consecutive times, it can be said that they are the best from the rest, no team can be involved in Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar’s battle for the title.

With an infusion of Brazilian talents, Metalist surprised everyone in Europe recently, qualifying three times over the last four seasons in the knockout stages of the Europa League.

Last season they’ve managed to go further than ever, reaching the quarter finals of the competition where they’ve been eliminated by Sporting Lisbon with 2-3 on aggregate.

Metalist sold Ukrainian international Marko Devic to Shakhtar for 5m euros, but moved fast on the transfer market and signed Brazilian striker Willian from Coimbra Esporte Clube for 4m euros.

The Betting Verdict

With half of their squad being foreign (most of them Brazilians) Metalist’s style is somehow similar to Shakhtar’s, offensive, possession based. I expect them to try to take an important step towards qualification and score at least once here.

Dinamo on the other hand is having some problems in the defense, as always, but they’ve showed an impressive offensive appetite in some Liga 1 games so far, but against way inferior opponents compared to Metalist.

I’m quite sure that the Ukrainians will be the ones playing in the group stages after this tie, they even have the quality to win both legs, so the price for the away win looks tasty to me. For caution, you can take them on draw no bet (AH 0).

The Pick :

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