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Fiorentina enters this match on the back of an impressive 4-2 home win against current Serie A champions Juventus (coming back from 0-2 down) and will look to take advantage of their current form and morale against minnows Pandurii from Romania.
Fiorentina has dominated this group so far, winning 3-0 with Pacos (home) and 2-1 with Dnipro (away). The hosts have a very good team this year after making some great signings in the summer. Even though Mario Gomez, the best transfer in the off season, will not be available until the end of the year with a knee injury, Fiorentina showed they can do well without him. The results are a testament for how much this team has improved: “La Viola” is 6th in the Serie A, but just 5 points behind leaders Napoli, they just defeated Juve and, as I said, they are utterly dominant in the Europa League group stage.
Pandurii is an emerging team from Romania with some good, young players. They finished 2nd last year in Liga 1 but it was more of a circumstantial placement, as most of the big clubs suffered from financial difficulties. Pandurii sold its best players in the summer but did manage to make a great signing, bringing in attacking midfielder Eric de Oliveira from Gaz Metan, a fantastic player. He already made the difference in many of Pandurii`s games this season, including in the surprising run to the Europa League group stages. Nobody was expecting this team to do much damage in Europe, but they knocked out Levadia Talinn, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Braga to qualify to the groups. Here Pandurii was decent so far, a 0-1 home loss to Dnepr and a 1-1 draw at Pacos. In the league Pandurii paid tribute to the involvment in the European cups, being only 4th in an extremely poor competition this season, but they did win 6-1 against FC Botosani in the last domestic round. A particularity of Pandurii is that they play much better away from home, especially in the Europa League.
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Team news & lineups
Vicenzo Montella stated that he respects Pandurii and that he will send the best possible starting 11 on the field for this one. The Viola manager seems to be perfectly prepared for this game, as he singled out accurately every one of Pandurii`s achievements and strengths this season. Fiorentina will miss Ilicic, Gomez, Hegazy, Ambrosini and Rebic, all of them being old injury worries (except Ambrosini). Pizzaro is suspended. Overall the hosts can`t complain too much about the team news. Pandurii are close to full strength, they will only miss 2 guys for this encounter: Paulinho and Predescu.
Fiorentina: Neto – Tomovic, Compper, Savic, Alonso – Cuadrado, Aquilani, Borja Valero – Ryder Matos, Rossi, Joaquin
Pandurii: Mingote – Ungurusan, Christou, Erico, Momcilovic, – Anton, Breeveld – Buleica, Eric, Nicoara – Matulevicius
You might say that Fiorentina won`t push too much in this game, but Montella assured the fans that the home team will treat the opponent seriously and try to play their best football, not resting any players. Surely the hosts would love to qualify as fast as possible from this group and be able to focus on the Serie A. Pandurii is a decent side and they did surprise a lot of people by winning against Hapoel Tel Aviv or Braga, but they come from a very poor league and Fiorentina is a totally different calibre of opponent. Pandurii was clearly outplayed at home by Dnipro and barely got a draw at weak Pacos, both of these teams being defeated by Fiorentina without any problems.
Expect the hosts to get a comfortable win on the back of a good home display, similar to what they did against Pacos Ferrerira in the last european home outing. The quality difference is just too big and I can`t think of a single reason for which Pandurii could at least make this interesting. Pandurii also has a rather poor defense, conceding in 5 of the last 6 european encounter and receiving 13 goals in 11 rounds in Romania, so the hosts should be able to pretty much create chances at will, especially with Giussepe Rossi (hattrick hero vs. Juventus) leading the attacking line. I think that maximum stakes are perfectly justified for Fiorentina to cover the handicap. My pick is Fiorentina – Pandurii 3-0.
Pick: Fiorentina (-1,5)
Odds: 1.93 @ Pinnacle
Stake: 10
Possible profit: 9.30
Event date: 24 October
Editor Facts
- Rostick is 6 for 7 in European Cups in October
