Steaua – Astra

Steaua Bucharest hosts Astra Girgiu at Arena Nationala in the Romanian Supercup. Steaua won the league comfortably last season, but lost the cup in the final against Astra at penalties, after 0-0 after 120 minutes.

Steaua dominated the league for 2 years in a row with the best squad in Romania and a very good manager in Laurentiu Reghecampf, but it might not be so easy this year. Steaua is on the brink of self-destruction at the moment: their owner was sent to prison, their general manager was sent to prison as well, coach Reghencampf (considered the mastermind of Steaua’s success) left to Al Hilal and their best players left the club as well over the last year (3 of them this summer). The loss of Reghecampf and best players Tatarusanu and Pintilii this summer could hurt Steaua badly. The champions brought in only one player, Arlauskis, a keeper that should replace Tatarusanu but only played a handful of matches in the last couple of years, being a backup at Rubin Kazan.

Steaua hired former Romanian International and club icon Costel Galca as a manager, but Galca has no experience in coaching and he was brought from Romania’s Under 15 team. The results in friendlies so far were awful and there are big questions over what Steaua can do this season. But even with all these negative things that have been said, Steaua still has the best players in the country right now and are slight favorites to win the title prior to the start of the season. However, Astra is just inches away from them in terms of quality. Team news for Steaua are very bad: besides the players that left, they will miss 2 other key guys today: captain Gardos (CB) and winger Adi Popa.

Steaua lineup: Arlauskis – Latovlevici, Szukala, Varela, Rapa – Stanciu, Prepelita – Tanase, Iancu, Chipciu – Keseru

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The Giurgiu side had a good season last year and did great to win the cup over a Steaua team that was much, much better than now. The visitors have a very good team as well and they have much more stability and financial security than Steaua at the moment, they also have better chemistry between the players and the coaching staff. They are very motivated to win a trophy, it will be only the 2nd one in their history, while Steaua thinks more about the Champions League qualies and have no bonuses promised for the Supercup. Team news for Astra say that key right back Matel and midfielder Yoda will not play.

Astra lineup: Lung – Morais, Gaman, Youssef, Oros – Yahaya, Laban – William, Budescu, Enache – Fatai

I think Steaua deserves to be slightly favored by the odds, they are still a very good team, but 1.95 is too low and I don’t think they will be able to win the Supercup; they do not look ready, don’t even have a stable tactical module under Galca and meet arguably the toughest opponent there is in Romania. They will field a much weaker side than in the Cup final when Astra won at penalties, and playing at home could have a lessened impact as not so many fans are expected at the game, and they are not happy with how things are working at Steaua right now. Between two evenly matched teams I see Astra winning the Cup due to better morale, motivation and cohesiveness, and the odds are very good. The under also looks a solid bet, it should be a tight game, but the odds are rather low. Value is on Astra to win the Supercup , but for a little bit more safety my tip will be Astra +0,5 handicap. I don’t want to disrespect Steaua but I will bet high stakes here both because of the bet safety and because of the odds. Correct score prediction: Steaua Bucharest – Astra Giurgiu 0-0 (0-1 extra time).

Pick: Astra Giurgiu (+0,5 handicap)
Odds: 1.88 @ Sbobet
Stake: 10
Possible profit: 8.8
Event date: 11 July