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Aron Wright - July 17, 2018
Slavia Sofia vs Ilves
Europa League First qualifying round
Date: Thursday, 19 July 2018
Kick-Off at 17:30 UK/ 18:30 CET
Venue: Nacionalen Stadion Vasil Levski (Sofia).
Slavia Sofia have been picking it up through their pre-season and they’ve bagged a 0-1 win over Ilves in the first leg, now hosting the Finnish rivals in the hope they can build on the success and bag a win at Stadion Vasil Levski – making their way to the Europa League 2nd Qualifying Round.
Whites have been rock-solid in front of the home crowd through most part of the last season and they’ll now surely look to retain such consistency early in the new campaign too. Zlatomir Zagorcic’s men have been regularly scoring and conceding goals here too, which will have them rather motivated in the attacking third once again.
Ilves will, on the other hand, want to overturn the advantage and this means they’ll have to be looking for a more convincing display up front. They’ve failed to score goals in both of their last two games, beaten by RoPS ahead of the first leg too. Ipa have scored seven goals in their last five games on the road and this could be more of a pick-me-up!
We’ll now back Slavia Sofia to make their way to the next round with a win priced at 1.66, which does seem like a generous banker bet at this point. We have seen them rock-solid at this ground and it does feel they have what it takes to turn another narrow clash their way.
We do believe they’ll have to outgun the rivals to do so, though, and we’ll now also back a YES on Both teams to score at 2.10. We have seen them regularly scoring goals on the road and Slavia should have a lot on their plate defensively as well.
