Beat the Bookmaker – Europa League Predictions

Thursday 18th May 2023

About Our Europa League Predictions

Similar to the nature of Champions League predictions, Europa League predictions present their own unique challenges when compared with Premier League predictions or those of the other major European leagues. Again, the uncertainty lies in the absence of a common pool of form to draw upon. What we mean by this is that with teams competing in different competitions of varying quality, it can be tricky to figure out whether or not a team who say, finished as runners-up in Denmark is as strong as the weakest French qualifier. This is especially apparent during the qualification phases for the groups and for the early part of the group stage itself. As the competition progresses, it’s possible to get a feel of the relative strengths and weaknesses of certain teams, but the early stages can be an unknown quantity.

Although football is prone to variance at all times when compared to some other sports due to its low-scoring nature, missed chances, packed defences and presence of a goalkeeper, the Europa League provides some interesting opportunities for betting – if you’re willing to do your research. It’s important to understand that while yes, most players will aim to play in Europe’s big leagues for competitive and financial reasons, some talented players remain at clubs in lesser leagues for a myriad of reasons. Such reasons include the chance of winning regular silverware, competing in European competitions regularly as opposed to fighting relegation at a bigger club, and also sometimes lifestyle choices based upon location and family. Therefore, it’s somewhat more complicated than blithely suggesting that the English club beats the Czech club, for example.

Sometimes, another factor can be the importance that a club places upon the competition. Some of the competition’s bigger teams will opt to rotate at least partially to compensate for a demanding fixture schedule, and therefore will be fielding a weaker team than normal. Therefore, when this situation occurs, you should be trying to analyse the match between the players who will actually be out there as opposed to their first-choice domestic team. Generally speaking, unless faced with a tough group, the bigger sides in the Europa League will try to navigate the group stage and qualify comfortably rather than go hell for leather for six matches. The Europa League has tried to eliminate some of this coasting by introducing a qualification round for the knockout stages against the third-placed group-stage Champions League sides.

The relative obscurity of some sides in the Europa League can also account for some of the difficulty in getting things right. Where we like to stand out is that we will watch highlight packages from those domestic leagues outside the major European leagues for those clubs who are involved in Europa League action. You’d be surprised how obvious it is when reading a preview that the author has either never seen that team play before or has only seen snippets in the Europa League. Therefore, we take the time to at least understand how a team will likely approach a particular game, beyond the xG, possession and shots-on-target statistics.

We talked about betting opportunities for Europa League predictions. Sometimes, due to the difficulty of comparing teams from different nations and the added obscurity compared with the Champions League, the odds-makers can get it wrong, initially at least. We tend to predict more ‘upsets’ in the Europa League that are, on closer inspection, not particularly big upsets. The champions of a mid-ranking European nation will absolutely be able to give more illustrious teams a game. Rangers reaching the final last season is a prime example of this fact. Knowing the difference between finishing 6th in Serie A and outright winning a decent league is hugely important, and it’s something that many pundits and fans alike misunderstand.