Europa League
2011-07-21 - Gaz Metan Medias vs KuPS Kuopio
A Sports Betting Pick by ROzsolt
Football: Uefa Europe League - Second Qualifying Round - Leg 2
Venue: "Municipal", Medias
Thursday 21th July - Kickoff time: 18:00 GMT+2
Gaz Metan Medias (Romania)
Medias finished 7th in the championship but they benefited from FC Timisoara's relegation (because of financial problems) and they were awarded a Europa League spot. For now, they haven't made the most of this opportunity - this being their first European appearance - losing in the first leg of this tie in Finland in a match that finished 1-0.
Looking past the obvious lack of experience, there were some other factors that lead to this disappointing result. First of all there is the synthetic pitch, which of course is always a disadvantage to a team that is not used to it. Despite this, Medias dominated the match, missing some important opportunities to score, they've even hit the post twice, but they were not able to score an away goal.
Medias is not a team with great financial means, so they were quiet on the transfer market, but they managed to keep their star player, Brazilian striker Eric, who scored 15 goals in the 2010-2011 season. Gaz Metan had a good home record, with only 2 defeats and only 12 goals conceded in 17 games.
Kups Kuopio (Finland)
Kups Kuopio hase not played in a European competition since 1990, when they were eliminated by Dynamo Kiev. In fact, in their previous 9 European appearances, the Finnish side only progressed once to the second round, in the 1978-1979 Uefa Cup, when they managed to eliminate a team from Denmark, Boldklubben 1903.
They qualified to this competition after finishing second in their domestic league, which is a clear indicator of the level of the club football from Finland.
Kups has the advantage of being involved in their league, on the other hand, their opponents are coming after a 2 month break. However, Kups Kuopio is struggling in the Finnish Veikkausliiga, with only 15 points from as many games, sitting on the 9th place from a total of 12 teams.
They have not won any of their previous 7 games and also failed to win any on the road. It looks like Gaz Metan Medias, who is coming from a stronger league and on the paper should be the better team was the only one lately that suffered a defeat against this team.
The Betting Verdict
I will try cover most of the games involving Romanian teams in the European competitions this year and will try not to fall in the trap of being subjective, but I just can't give credit to Kups, a team that are 9th in such a poor league.
It's a fair point that if they come from such a poor league and won the first leg then what does that say about the Romanian league, but coming to this game after a two month break, playing on synthetic pitch on their first ever appearance in a European competition, gives Medias some justification.
This leg should look way different and I think Medias will win this with a 2 or 3 goal margin, which would secure them a qualification to the next round where they could meet FC Mainz from Germany.
The Pick :
Gaz Metan Medias 2-0 KuPS Kuopio
BEST BETTING TIP :
Take Gaz Metan Medias (-1) at 1.95 Bet365Confidence: 7/10
