Dinamo Buc – Voluntari

Dinamo Bucharest will host FC Voluntari on Sunday night in the opening round of the 2018/2019 Romanian Liga 1 season.

Dinamo Bucharest failed to reach the playoffs last year in what was a huge disappointment for the club, but managed to dominate the playouts with a young squad, eventually finishing 7th in the overall standings. The hosts will attempt to finish Top 6 this time around and will largely rely on the young team they built during last years playout. Without a lot of money to spend, Dinamo didn`t sign any top players, but they brought in a few decent guys and didn`t lose any key men. The team should be good enough to reach the playoffs and maybe even fight for the title in a weak league.

FC Voluntari was very lucky to avoid the drop last season, as they finished 12th (out of 14) and had to play in the promotion / relegation playoffs – which they won via a penalty shootout against Liga 2 team Chindia Targoviste. The club changed the manager ahead of this season, hiring unproven coach Daniel Oprita on the position, and also brought experienced manager Ioan Andone to supervise things as a so called general manager. Voluntari made a lot of changes in the squad as well, signing 19 (!!) players and losing 14. Overall the squad looks weaker than last year, as many key players left or retired (Cernat, Sanmartean, Minca, Ivanovici, Marinescu, Horj, Pleasca or Benzar) and the new signings don`t seem to be very exciting.

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Team news & lineups:

Both teams are healthy and will field pretty much their best lineups. Voluntari does miss its main striker Tudorie, but he`s been out since 2017.

Dinamo Bucharest: Penedo – Corbu, Popescu, Katsikas, Popovici – Hanca, Mahlangu, Nistor – Moldoveanu, Popa, Salomao

FC Voluntari: Draghia – Ricardinho, Walace, Zgrablic, Vlad – Sesar, Rauta – Capatana, Jankovic, Ciucur – Balan

Voluntari definitely looks like one of the favorites for relegation, given that after all the moves they actually seem to be weaker than last season, when they barely survived. Also, they could have a tough time competing in the beginning after making so many personnel changes in the Summer.

Dinamo looked good last season in the playout when they consistently beat up teams like Voluntari, and they could be on track of building a good team under young head coach Florin Bratu. The team doesn`t have top talent overall, but the Red Dogs do have a few top class players (Penedo, Nistor, Mahlangu or Salomao come to mind), and a few very talented youngsters who gained playing time and proved themselves in the playouts. Also, there`s very good chemistry within the starting lineup.

Dinamo is the better team, has home court advantage and is much more cohesive than Voluntari. Dinamo`s chemistry should be a particularly great advantage against a team which signed and lost more than 30 players this summer, plus the manager.

Also, for some reason Dinamo has completely dominated Voluntari since today`s visitors first got promoted back in 2015. Dinamo won all 9 H2H meetings, 7 of them by more than 1 goal, and scoring at least 2 goals each time. Last season the two teams met 4 times, Dinamo winning 3-1, 2-0, 4-2 and 2-0. The H2H games between Dinamo and Voluntari have also always been very high scoring, 7 of them having more than 2.5 goals, and an average of 3.5 goals per game being scored.

This one could see a high number of goals as well. Dinamo has some really good attacking midfielders like Nistor, Hanca, Pesic or Salomao, who are some of the best players in the division and should create plenty of chances against this weak Voluntari side. On the other hand, Dinamo’s defense is by far their weak spot, with the exception of Panama’s keeper Penedo, who is a top player. But aside from him Dinamo doesn`t have a single quality defender in the team and the center backs are very error prone, so Voluntari could get their chances on the break.

It`s also worth noting that Voluntari`s general manager is Ioan Andone, one of the most offensive minded coaches in Romanian football, whose teams have always been a gold mine for overs. While it`s true that he is more of a superviser and the head coach is actually Daniel Oprita, Andone’s input still carries weight, and his ideas could be reflected in Voluntari`s style of play.

All in all, this looks like it will be a Dinamo Bucharest win with quite a few goals being scored. Both teams look good value to score, but if Voluntari doesn`t manage to find the net, there`s still a realistic chance that Dinamo could score 3 by themselves. All things being considered, my tip will be over 2.5 goals to be scored.

I was initially thinking about betting on “Dinamo to win and over 2.5 goals”, but the odds around 2.50 – 2.60 for that bet do not seem high enough to warrant the additional risk in my opinion, so I will stick with just the over. Prediction: Dinamo Bucharest – FC Voluntari 3-1.

Pick: over 2,5 goals
Odds: 2.20 @ 1xBet
Stake: 8
Possible profit: 9.60
Event date: 22 July