Europa League Tips Leipzig vs Craiova
The German side of Leipzig has been growing and consolidating in German football but at the European level it also wants to achieve a solid and respectful status.
Already started to give great indicators in the past season, where they reached the quarter-finals of this Europa League, and certainly will want to beat that mark or even go even further in this year’s edition.
The team officially started their season in the second qualifying round, where the Swedes left Häcken with a 4-0 win in the first leg and a 1-1 draw in the second half of the away leg.
However, after those two games, Leipzig have already scored their first pre-season defeat by 3-0 against Huddersfield Town of the English Premier League.
The domestic debut only takes place this weekend to eight, with the duel with Viktoria Köln, for DFB Pokal.
Universitatea Craiova participates for the second time in these pre-qualifiers, having been eliminated last year by AC Milan.
This time they are here because of the 3rd place obtained in the Liga Romena 2017/18, where they finished 12 points of the champion Cluj and 11 of the vice Steaua Bucharest.
This new season did not start well for the Romanians, who even kept the coach. In the pre-season, they registered defeats with the modest Japanese formation of the V-Varen Nagasaki and with the Russians of the Ufa.
On 14 July, they officially started their season with a defeat in the Romanian Super Cup against Cluj (0-1).
Craiova have just scored 2 points from their home draws with Iasi (0-0) and Botosani (2-2), having lost in their only game away from home with Sepsi (0-1 ).
Craiova know that if you want to dream of passing this tie you have to avoid to the maximum to be thrashed or lose by a wide margin in this first hand.
I think he’s going to play along with his tight lines and low defensive block, so that he can make room for Leipzig’s creatives to think about the game and create goal opportunities with ease, trying to surprise in a counterattack.
However, Leipzig have men with more than enough ability to win a team like this, which has not even started well internally and is going to play against one of the best German teams in recent years.
Leipzig vs Craiova Prediction
There is Bruma, there is Matheus Cunha, a 19-year-old boy hired from Sion by 15ME who made his debut in both games in the last qualifying round, Forsberg missed the first qualifying round, but has already played about an hour in the second game, Kevin Kampl, finally there is a lot of quality to overcome the Romanian defensive wall and achieve at least a triumph by two or three goals difference, to form to reach Romania to manage the effort, as Ralf Rangnick did in Sweden.
Betting Tip: Leipzig EH -1
Odds: 1.32
