Romanian League
2011-12-10 - Steaua Bucuresti vs CFR Cluj
A Sports Betting Pick by ROzsolt
Football: Romanian Liga 1
Venue: "National Areana", Bucharest
Saturday 10th December - Kickoff time: 20:00 GMT+2
Steaua (4th W-8 D-4 L-4)
Steaua is coming after the most important victory of the season, at least for their supporters, defeating their traditional rivals Dinamo Bucuresti. The victory was even more valuable as it was obtained on their rivals venue.
Dinamo broke the deadlock after converting a penalty, but Steaua fought back and Raul Rusescu who is currently the man to watch at Steaua managed to score twice, while Mihai Costea secured the victory in the dying minutes of the match. Raul Rusescu is actually the top scorer of the team with 7 goals in the Romanian league so far.
With this victory Steaua climbed all the way up to the 4th place, but there is still a significant distance between them and Dinamo, 8 points.
Ilie Stan won’t be able to count on Gardos, Radut, Popa, Tatu, Matei and Balan, all injured. From these, the most important absence is striker Tatu, who started the season well, scoring important goals in Europa League and the domestic league as well.
Steaua’s home form:
26.11.2011 Liga 1 Etapa 15 Steaua 1 - 0 FC Brasov
06.11.2011 Liga 1 Etapa 13 Steaua 2 - 1 Concordia Chiajna
24.10.2011 Liga 1 Etapa 11 Steaua 0 - 0 Rapid
02.10.2011 Liga 1 Etapa 9 Steaua 2 - 1 Otelul Galati
18.09.2011 Liga 1 Etapa 7 Steaua 1 - 2 Pandurii Tg. Jiu
CFR Cluj (2nd W-11 D-2 L-3)
CFR will be travelling to Bucharest to face Steaua on the stadium that will host the Europa League final and will try to win for the first time against Steaua in the capital.
Jorge Costa’s team is on a 3 match winning streak started with the victory in the derby against Universitatea Cluj and continued with wins over Vointa Sibiu (1-0) and CS Mioveni (3-0).
These results combined with Dinamo’s defeat against Steaua decreased the difference between the leader and CFR to just one point. Dinamo will travel to Ploiesti to face Astra, which is always a difficult team to handle, so in case of a victory CFR could take over the leadership.
With 35 goals scored so far, CFR has the best attack from the league, 14 of those being scored on the road, which is an average of exactly 2 goals per match. Weldon is the player to watch, the Brazilian striker at his first season in Romania already scored 7 goals.
CFR’s away form:
27.11.2011 Liga 1 Etapa 15 Vointa Sibiu 0 - 1 CFR Cluj
31.10.2011 Liga 1 Etapa 12 FC Brasov 1 - 2 CFR Cluj
15.10.2011 Liga 1 Etapa 10 Concordia Chiajna 0 - 4 CFR Cluj
24.09.2011 Liga 1 Etapa 8 Rapid 1 - 1 CFR Cluj
09.09.2011 Liga 1 Etapa 6 Otelul Galati 0 - 4 CFR Cluj
The Betting Verdict
Since CFR Cluj promoted in the first league in 2004, these two met 14 times, CFR only winning one encounter. Steaua won half of these games while the remaining, logically ended in draws. Actually, in the previous games the draw has been the most common outcome, 5 of the last 6 matches between Steaua and CFR ending undecided.
Steaua will have Emeghara as a right-back and Latovlevic as a left-back, the first one coming after a long absence period, while Latovlevic is no by far in his best form of his career, so there might be some chances for the fast wingers that CFR has, Ronny and Sougou to make some damage.
I expect CFR to score at least once in this one and walk away undefeated, but Steaua has been neglected before the match against Dinamo as well and they pulled off a surprising results for most people. They’ll have Nikolic and Rusescu in front, the first one is massive, but rather slow, so don’t think that he’ll be hard to annihilate, while Rusescu is the man with the surprising shots and probably the best Steaua player at the moment.
With more than 40 000 fans on their side, Steaua will have to go out an attack, which is exactly the type of game that fits CFR, so I expect them to take full advantage of the spaces left uncovered. We should see some goals in this one and at prices of 2.2 it’s definitely worth a shot.
The Pick :
Steaua 1-2 CFR Cluj
