Plzen – Maribor

Viktoria Plzen is the favorite in this tie against Maribor, but they need to be 100% focused if they want to reach the group stages of Champions League. Plzen has experience at this level, playing in the groups in the past, also making some big european results in the last years, like beating Napoli 5-0 at aggregate just one year ago in the Europa League. Plzen is two-time reigning champion of Czech Republic and they are big favorites to win the league again this year. They started the season very well, losing the supercup to Jablonec but being on first place in the league at the moment, undefeated, with 4 wins and 1 draw … 14-2 goal difference. In the CL qualifiers they have beat Zelejnicar (Bosnia) 6-4 agg. and Kajlu (Estonia) 10-2 agg. Plzen is in great form and is ready for this game.

Plzen has a squad consisting mainly of czech players, with no big stars. Team cohesion and tactical discipline has been their main strength over the last years, they play really good as a team. For this reason they are not usually upset by weaker teams.

Maribor is playing brilliant at the moment in the league, winning all games and demolishing every team, of course just 4 games have been played. But in Europe the quality of slovenian football was exposed … Maribor could have been eliminated by Birkirkara of Malta quite honestly, and after that they were hugely outplayed by APOEL Nicosia but somehow they managed to scrape 2 draws and advance on away goals. Big help from the referees was a reason for their success. Many people were actually blaming a conspiracy from the slovenian UEFA representatives, as the refereeing was incredibly one-sided in both games against APOEL. The cypriots had three of the clearest possible penalties in football, and none were awarded. Actually the APOEL keeper took the liberty of calling Maribor an amateur team after the second game, which says a lot.

Maribor has a very weak squad, for example their best striker this season is Jean Phillipe Mendy, who became a professional footballer in 206 when he was spotted by Dinamo Bucharest, and until 2 years ago he was a reserve at Dinamo`s second team, in the romanian second league. Most Maribor starters were fringe players at teams like APOEL or are poor players from the internal league. Slovenian club football is very poor, so Maribor`s results in the league are not relevant.

Regarding team news, Maribor will miss two crucial players, Filipovic and Mezga, with the two regular centre-backs (Rajcevic and Arghus) being questionable. Plzen has no big squad problems.

Plzen dominated possession in every game this season, they will do it again for sure today, and with Maribor`s problems in defense, the hosts will have their fair share of chances. Plzen is also a very good home team. Taking these factors intro account, and all of the above, the czech team should win this one comfortable enough to be able to approach the second leg more relaxed, which is their objective.

My call would be 4-1 for Plzen.

Pick: Viktoria Plzen (-1 AH)
Odds: 1.76 @ Sbobet
Stake: 9
Possible profit: 6.84
Event date: 20 August