Voluntari – Steaua

Relegation strugglers FC Voluntari will welcome title favorites Steaua Bucharest in a match counting for the 10th round of the Romanian Liga 1. The game will be played on a neutral stadium, in Ploiesti.

Voluntari has a decent squad this season and should fare better than last year, when they had to play a playout to stay in the division. Nevertheless, the hosts are still expected to be involved in the fight to stay up, especially if they don’t improve their current form. Voluntari lost the previous two matches and is now sitting on the 9th place (out of 14).

Steaua is on the back of a surprising 1-2 home loss against CFR Cluj, their first defeat of the season in Romania. The result was definitely a big shock, especially as CFR deserved to win, it was not a fluke. However, the signs were there for Steaua, who played rather poorly in the last few weeks and had difficult wins against mediocre opponents. The visitors are currently on the 1st place in the league, tied with Craiova, but Steaua has a game in hand.

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Team news: Voluntari could line up in similar fashion to how they did in the 0-1 defeat to Craiova last round. Steaua will probably rotate the squad a bit, but not in the sense of resting players. They don’t have a typical starting 11 and change things up every game.

It’s obvious that Steaua is not playing great football right now, but even so their roster remains the best in Romania and they are leading the league for a reason. They are certainly a much better side than Voluntari and will not accept anything less than 3 points in this match.

Steaua does have a game coming up in Europa League next week against Villarreal, but after the defeat against CFR this match with Voluntari became very important and the visitors are expected to field a strong lineup.

An important argument in my analysis is that Steaua’s worse games of the season came against teams that defend well (for example, last round against CFR). That is not the case with Voluntari, which allowed 14 goals in 9 games. Point is, I don’t think the hosts are the kind of team to frustrate Steaua by parking the bus and defending in numbers.

This is definitely an accessible match for Steaua and I don’t see the title favorites losing points in two consecutive rounds (even if Voluntari beat them at home 3-1 last season). My tip is Steaua to win, I’m backing them to bounce back after the CFR loss – especially as Voluntari won’t even have home court advantage here. Prediction: Voluntari – Steaua 0-2.

Pick: Steaua
Odds: 1.62 @ Unibet
Stake: 7
Possible profit: 4.34
Event date: 25 September