Partizan – Trakai
Partizan impressed in the last round of the Europa League qualifiers, knocking Montenegran side Rudar out with 6-0 on aggregate. Tonight they face Lithuanian side Trakai and should be the clear favorites once again.
They did however start their league campaign with a 0-1 defeat away against Surdulica, but with plenty of new players in the squad it’s not really that worrying, and they now have another 90 minutes together under the belt. Partizan is also a totally different team at home and there are very few teams that will walk away with anything from a trip to Partizan Stadium. In fact, they only lost once there all season last year.
The strike force is a bit depleted going in to this clash as Jovanovic, Nikolic, Ozegovic and possibly Tosic all out, but we see it as an excellent opportunity for new signing Ricardo Gomes to get off the mark. Gomes scored 22 times for Portuguese side Nacional last season and could prove to be shrewd signing.
Trakai just made it through on two occcasiona against rather poor opposition in their Europa League qualifying campaign. First they barely got passed Welsh side Cefn Druids and then again struggled against Kazak side Irtysh.
They currently sit fourth in the table in Lithuanian A Lyga, not exactly impressing considering Lithuanian football has been on a downward spiral few years. The Lithuanian national team now rank 126th in the world and club football is not much better.
Despite having a few problems, we believe it will be a rather comfortable win for Partizan tonight.
Date & Time: 26 July 2018 – 20.30 CEST
Competition: Europa League
Match: Partizan Belgrade – Trakai
Pick: Partizan Asian Hcp -1.5, -2
Odds: 1.66 @ Unibet
Stake: 20 EUR
Rating: 3/5
Result: