FC Timisoara v Manchester City
Football: Uefa Europa League: Play-offs
Venue: "Dan Paltinisanu" stadium, Timisoara, Romania
Thursday 19th August – Kickoff time: 21:45 GMT+2

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FC Timisoara

For most of Timisoara’s players this is the match of their life, but among City’s million pounds player they will have to fight against history as well.

Timisoara have not won for more than 20 years on home ground in any European competition, not even against previous qualifying stage opponents, Mypa. Their last victory was registered on 7th November 1990, when they defeated Sporting Lisbon 2-0 in the Uefa Cup.

Despite that, they caused a huge shock last season when they eliminated Shakhtar Donetsk (Europa League holders at that moment) in the second qualifying round of Uefa Champions League after two draws.

Timisoara have not lost any game this season, they accumulated 6 points from 4 games in the championship that places them 6th at the moment. Their defense was quite shaky, conceding 7 goals in the championship and 4 in the tie against MyPa. If City takes the match seriously they should score at least once.

The stadium will be almost full (there has to be 2000 empty seats for security reasons) so that means 28 000 fans will attend this match and will try to make it difficult for Manchester City.

Manchester City

Manchester City starts their European campaign as the bookies favorites for winning the competition but first they need to get through this unpredictable team from Timisoara.

City proved to be big spenders this summer with more than 100 million euro spent on players like Yaya Toure, Mario Balotelli, David Silva, Aleksandar Kolarov or Jerome Boateng. The newest signing is James Milner from Aston Villa for a reported fee of 16 million pounds plus midfielder Stephen Ireland. Ireland joins Craig Bellamy through the exit after the Wales forward joined Cardiff City in a shock loan deal.

However, Kolarov who suffered an injury against Tottenham as well as James Milner and Jerome Boateng have not made the trip to Timisoara, the last two will probably show up in the league game against Liverpool. Wayne Bridge also remains sidelined with a toe injury.

Roberto Mancini has a hard job to find a first 11 with so many great players at his disposal. The hardest job however could be keeping the rest of players happy, because great players also mean strong personalities. He announced that he will make 2 or 3 modifications to the squad that faced Tottenham in their first official game this season.

The Tottenham game was more demanding than they probably thought, so they should consider themselves lucky to get one point because spurs missed a great number of opportunities during the match.

Mancini is expected to hand Balotelli his debut for City so Timisoara’s defenders will find it hard to resist against such an impressive attack that includes Carlos Tevez and the two extremely fast players on the flanks, Johnson and Wright-Phillips.

The Betting Verdict :

Timisoara lost two of the 3 games they played at home last season in Europa League, scoring only one goal against Ajax in the 1-2 defeat. A year before that they lost with the same score at home against Partizan Belgrade. It is obvious that they can only be competitive until a certain level and they have serious problems against teams with superior skills such as Manchester City.

On the other hand I do not like the way English teams perform in their European travels, for example Tottenham who looked way better than City surprisingly lost in Switzerland against Young Boys. There are other examples of Romanian teams against English opponents in UCL, Chelsea failed to score against CFR Cluj in 2008 while Arsenal were lucky to beat Steaua 1-0 a year before. Let’s not forget Steaua – Middlesbrough semifinal in 2006 with the Romanians winning the first leg 1-0 and Dinamo Bucuresti with the notorious 5-1 win against Everton in 2005.

That being said I still believe that Timisoara is not the best team that Romanian football can give at the moment, you cannot hope for anything good against Manchester City if you conceded 7 goals in 4 games from teams like Gloria Bistrita and Gaz Metan Medias. However, Timisoara will try to compensate the lack of value with a great deal of sacrifice and they have to because those 30 000 fans can turn against them very quickly. City should win but the odds are not great.

The Pick :

FC Timisoara 0-2 Manchester City

HANDICAP BETTING :

Take Manchester City -1 AH at 1.925 Bet365