Betting Tips

Champions League Qualifying Round Betting Tips, Preview and Predictions


Champions League Qualifying Round Betting Tips

This round of qualifying is split into two sections known as the ‘Champions Route’, purely for league champions, and the ‘League Route’, for league non-champions. The losing teams in both sections are placed into the Europa League playoff round, while the winners will enter the Champions League playoff round.

The League route fixtures catch the eye mostly due to the fact that these teams are from leagues higher up the UEFA country coefficient. Fixtures from this route include Club Brugge v Istanbul Basaksehir, AEK Athens v CSKA Moscow, Dynamo Kyiv v Young Boys and Steaua Bucharest v Viktoria Plzen.

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Our first tip comes from the highest ranked coefficient country currently in the competition as OGC Nice face Ajax. Nice boss Lucien Favre had an incredible debut season with the Eaglets, finishing in third place in Ligue 1.

Heading into the new season, his only significant loss so far is captain Paul Baysse who has left for Malaga. Favre has moved quickly to bring in Adrien Tameze in his position, while also recruiting France international veteran Christophe Jallet from Lyon to replace Ricardo Pereira. Younes Belhanda played a part on loan last season but departs for Galatasaray, seven goal Dijon midfielder Pierre Lees-Melou is his replacement.

In contrast, Ajax have lost manager Peter Bosz to Borussia Dortmund and new boss Marcel Keizer has already forfeited captain Davy Klaassen to Everton, right back Kenny Tete to Lyon and centre back Jairo Riedewald to Crystal Palace with only Klaas-Jan Huntelaar incoming. Influential attacker Bertrand Traore has also returned to Chelsea, and since moved to Lyon, following a successful loan spell in Holland.

Nice have a seriously talented lineup including Malang Sarr, Dante, Dalbert Henrique, Jean Seri, Mario Balotelli and Alassane Plea managed by an experienced tactician in Favre and they should topple the second best team in Holland in Wednesday’s home leg – take the 11/10 on offer with BetVictor.

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Nextly, we are looking at Polish side Legia Warsaw, who walloped Finnish champions IFK Mariehamn 9-0 on aggregate to reach this stage. Their next opponents Kazakhstani champions Astana struggled greatly against Latvian side Spartaks in the previous round, progressing narrowly in a 2-1 aggregate win.

Captain Miroslav Radovic is a legend at Legia and comes into their next leg in terrific form. Legia have seen Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe move on to Olympiacos, but a forward thinking outfit including Radovic, Krzysztof Mączyński, Dominik Nagy, Guilherme and Kasper Hämäläinen can be lethal and should have too much for Astana to handle. Back Legia at 15/8 with SkyBet to grab a massive away win in the first leg on Tuesday.

Finally, Slovenian champions Maribor came through a tight scalp with Zrinjski Mostar to draw Icelandic side FH (Fimleikafélag Hafnarfjarðar) in this stage and they couldn’t have asked for a much nicer fixture. The Icelandic champions feature marquee players Gunnar Nielsen, Robbie Crawford and Steven Lennon, who have each turned out for Wrexham, East Kilbride and Newport County before ending up south of Rejykavik.

FH only overcame minnows Vikingur Gota, of the Faroe Islands, late into the second leg with the aid of two red cards for the semi-professional club. Darko Milanic’s Maribor, responsible for chucking Aberdeen out of the Europa League qualifying last season, should realistically eliminate the Icelandic club with relative ease and we anticipate a straight-forward win for the Slovenians in Wednesday’s home fixture – 1/5 is the price on offer with most bookies, but it should be easy pickings.