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Out of form Valencia will meet Rapid Vienna at Mestalla in the first leg of this very interesting Europa League Last 32 tie.
Valencia finally managed to win a game in La Liga after 12 matches and almost 3 months without a victory, but there was no glory in the 2-1 result against Espanyol. Valencia trailed 0-1 and needed two late goals to scrape a home win against a dreadful Espanyol team, by far the worst side in La Liga at the moment. It has been a season to forget for Garry Neville’s side, as Valencia is on the 12th place in Spain, just lost to Barcelona in the Cup 8-1 aggregate and was knocked out of the Champions League by Gent. The English manager has done nothing to improve the situation since he took over in December.
Rapid Vienna claimed 15 points from a possible 18 to top a group that also featured the likes of Villarreal and Viktoria Plzen. It was not a big surprise considering how well the Austrians played in the Champions League qualifiers, where they knocked out Ajax and were very unlucky to lose 2-3 aggregate to Shakhtar. The visitors are currently tied for the 1st place in the Austrian Bundesliga with Salzburg and are on the back of a spectacular 3-0 road win over arch rivals Austria Vienna – who were actually topping the league before that result.
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Team news & lineups:
Valencia is in big trouble as they will miss the regular center back pairing of Mustafi and Abdennour. Schaub, Dibon and Novota are unavailable for Rapid Wien.
Valencia: Alves – Cancelo, Santos, Vezo, Gaya – Parejo, Perez – Feghouli, Rodrigo, Cheryshev – Alcacer
Rapid Vienna: Strebinger – Pavelic, Sonnleitner, Hofmann, Strangl – Petsos, Schwab – Murg, Hofmann, Kainz – Jelic
Rapid Vienna is a very good side and they proved their worth in Europe this season against opponents like Ajax, Shakhtar or Villarreal – all of them stronger than this current Valencia team. I see no reason for which Valencia should be considered a 1.75 odds favorite in this match the way they are looking right now. There’s a big difference in form and morale between these two teams.
The visitors will enter this game with massive confidence after the Austria Vienna result and I expect them to punish this shaky Valencia side on the break. Rapid Vienna has a lot of quality up front and the absence of the regular center back pairing could be devastating for Valencia. My tip is Rapid Vienna to cover a 0,5 handicap, I don’t think the Austrians will lose this and we could see some goals as well. Odds look great to me. Prediction: Valencia – Rapid Wien 1-2.
Pick: Rapid Vienna +0,5
Odds: 2.13 @ Sbobet
Stake: 8
Possible profit: 9.04
Event date: 18 February
How is this possible…
Epic fail … I really had expectations from this bet. Maybe the win vs. Austria Vienna took too much from Rapid mentally, it`s the only explanation I can find.
And what happened to the rest of europa league matches?1 from 7 at odds under 1.90 except that half time.
What can I say? Obviously, I blew it, misjudged most of the matches and money were lost. No excuses for this bet or for the others.
No, 4 of the 7 tips had odds over 1.95 (Sparta, Braga, Basel and this one)
ps: just realized I settled the half time at Praga as lost, in fact it was half lost, so I added 3 units to my record.
Yeah my thoughts are similar. It’s very tricky. Rapid won vs their arch rivals Austria Vienna and the momentum seemed kind of great. And then they totally collapsed vs out of form Valencia. Is it possible to predict that? Hmm. But it seems bookies have predicted pretty well. Maybe it’s a sign that Valencia will start to play now. I don’t think so, however.
Yep, we`re in agreement. Not only bookies, most punters were all over Valencia too. I still don`t find the logic for that, but obviously I was wrong and others were right – even though 6-0 is obviously something that nobody could have guessed, because Rapid Wien proved themselves as a strong side this season. Interesting to see Valencia in the next few games.