Cluj VS FC Pyunik Yerevan

Cluj host Pyunik Yerevan for this UEFA Champions League qualification first round match at Stadionul Dr. Constantin Rădulescu Cluj-Napoca early Thursday morning Beijing time. This is the second leg, and some football fans might be led to think the visitors from Armenia have a real chance of qualifying for the next round as the first leg was a goalless draw in Armenia. However, I think the visitors would need to be be massively lucky or the hosts having a completely below the normal level day to win this one – even through extra time or penalties.. The difference in pure class between the two teams is substantial!

First of all, Romania is still a pretty good football country despite being in decline in recent years. Romanians are also very enthusiastic about football and atmosphere is often great when the national team - or Cluj/ other top teams play at home. I have often mentioned that home is substantial in international club competitions but for Cluj it is even bigger than on average in UEFA’s club competitions! For Cluj not qualifying would be a catastrophe – even a disgrace as a lot of money – and also bonus money for the players is on the line here.. For a club with Cluj financial resources and decent success in the past in European club competitions Europe League group stage is a realistic goal. As for the visitors, who have never achieved anything worth mentioning in European club competitions, I would be shocked if they were to get anywhere near Europa League group phase! To be honest, they probably will not qualify even for Conference League – the third tier of UEFA’s competions..

The Romanian Liga 1 is of totally different level than the very low level Armenian Vbet Premier League, which is of lower quality than the betting market, many football journalists and football bettors seem to estimate.. It is of even lower level than my home country’s Finland’s first tier, Veikkausliiga. For example, last season KuPS from Kuopio - from my home country, completely crushed Armenian Noah in Conference League qualification first round 5-1 on aggregate. I must highlight once again that the Finnish Veikkausliiga and KuPS are of low level by European standards. Yes, the visitors are better than Noah but not by a wide margin.. Cluj, on the other hand, are from a different planet than KuPS.. In their most recent match, the visitors played a 1-1 draw against Alashkert and have not been at their best lately in their domestic league. Yerevan will surely do their best and fight hard here but already in the first leg Cluj were clearly the better team and should improve further after a competitive match in the pocket. Their domestic league is on a summer break. Yerevan have a decent defense, better than I would have thought, but offensively they seemed very lame and were lucky to avoid defeat in first leg were Cluj were priced around 1.45 to win on the betting market. It is, in fact, pretty common in UEFA's competitions that the clear underdog steals a draw at home – or even wins - in the first leg but then gets smashed away from home by the better team.. I would not be at all surprised of the Armenians failed to score here.. 2-0 or 3-0 are very probably final scores, and the chance of my fans and me winning with the Cluj -1.5 goals handicap option is 65%. We would need the hosts to win by at least two goals’ margin. In terms of players’ total market value according to a well-known and widely respected German website Transfermarkt.com - and this is a surprisingly good reflection on a team’s level in the pitch - the hosts are a much bigger club with almost 30 million euros’ total value. In my opinion, this is still too low and 34-35 million would be more correct! The visitors’ squad is valued at around 6 million, but they definitely look worse than that in real action! I expect massive pressure on the visitors’ defense from the skilled and well-organized hosts here - right from the start. A fast goal would force the visitors to make more risks as the match progresses, and this would surely offer the host very good chances for dangerous counterattacks! Even a 4-0 or 5-0 win for them would not shock me at all!