Villarreal Face Tough First Leg Away to Russian Champions
February 12th, 2008
After a two month break, the UEFA Cup resumes on Wednesday night, as 32 remaining teams enter the excitement of the knock-out phase. A quick glance at the first-leg fixture list shows such a roll-call of top quality European sides, that UEFA Cup bettors are spoiled for choice. Five British sides will be hoping to make the short journey to the City of Manchester Stadium for the UEFA Cup final on May 14th, but there is a lot of football to be played between now and then.
Villarreal Face Tough First Leg Away to Russian Champions
The Yellow Submarine must negotiate a safe passage back from Russia on Wednesday night, as La Liga side, Villarreal visit 2007 Russian Champions, Zenit St. Petersburg. Zenit may not have excelled in the group phase, finishing third in their section, but they are exceedingly hard to beat at home. Dick Advocaat’s side haven’t lost in their last 21 home games in European competition, and there will definitely be a frosty reception for the Spaniards at the Petrovsky Stadium. However, Zenit are at the disadvantage of being outside of their regular season which runs from March until November, which may explain some of their results in the group phase.
Villarreal are riding high in La Liga, in third position behind Barcelona and Real Madrid. They may have won just one of their last five fixtures in all competition but they faced both they faced Barca twice – losing 1-0 over two legs of the Spanish Cup – and Madrid once – going down 3-2 at the Bernabeu. Those hard fixtures will have tuned them up for this game, and Manuel Pelligrini’s side should be confident having topped Group C ahead of Fiorentina, dropping just two points.
PinnacleSports.com make Villarreal marginal favourites off a level handicap 1.826 (1/scratch)* with Zenit St.Petersburg 2.110 (0/scratch)* – a market priced to 102%.
* Odds subject to change – check out the latest prices on UEFA Cup Betting across the top online sportsbooks here at BookieLabRat.com
Entry Filed under: European Football,Sports Betting
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed