Thursday night sees Toulouse and Benfica square off in Europa League playoff action.
Europa League Playoff
While the hosts are looking to put their current Ligue 1 campaign behind them and hoping for some European cheer.
A Midweek Break
As a usual mainstay of the Champions League Round of 16 it comes as a surprise to see Benfica not part of this season’s panel. The Portuguese giants only managing a third place finish in Group D before Christmas and now they have activated their Europa League parachute.
Although their parachute does not necessarily offer soft landing to the knockout phase of the competition and although they got the better of Toulouse in last week’s first leg, there is still a job to done in France.
While Roger Schmidt’s men can be considered rather fortunate to be at this stage at all. Were it not for a Matchday 6 win over RB Salzburg in Austria and a sizeable enough one at that, there would be no further continental football to talk about until next season.
A lifeline granted after the 3-1 win at the Red Bull Arena, now it is time to make best of use of it and when you consider the plight of Toulouse in Ligue 1, Benfica may also be thanking the powers that be for a rather kind playoff draw.
Although Toulouse may have got the better of Monaco in their last league outing, their season has given their support little to write home about and with the Stadium TFC outfit lying 14th in the table, their primary concern is currently staying outside the relegation zone.
Something that is not necessarily a given and were it not for their recent win in Monte Carlo, it would be Carles Martínez Novell’s men who would find themselves within the bottom three – as things stand, they are point clear of danger.
Then again, one could argue if Toulouse have any genuine European pedigree in the first place and after finishing 13th in last season’s Ligue 1 standings, it was only their Coupe De France victory that has led them to Europa League qualification.
At that same time that argument goes some way to being largely nullified when you look at their performances in the competition. A 3-2 win over Liverpool being the high water mark, had they followed it up with a win over Union Saint-Gilloise, they would have topped their group.
A point behind Jurgen Klopp’s men and this is their reward, a Benfica side that currently sit second in Portugal’s Liga NOS on goal difference and hit Valera for six at the weekend. A Benfica side that it not firing on the same level of cylinders as before.
But now it is time for the first of my two tips and after the visitors won the first leg in Portugal by two goals to one, I think another win and both teams to score combination is the way forward. Benfica completing the job but conceding at least once is currently priced at odds of 13/5.
In addition to this, I am going to back Toulouse to bag a consolation goal and it will come from Dutch forward Thijs Dallinga. He has already scored 12 in all competitions this season and if he is the last entry on Thursday’s scoresheet, the prize is odds of 8/1.
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