Brondby VS Pogon Szczecin

Brondby host Pogon Szczecin for this UEFA Conference League qualification second leg at Brøndby Stadion. The hosts are a Danish team - the visitors are from Poland. Both countries are decent football countries and there is even a bit of a football boom in Denmark at the moment. The Danes made it all the way to semifinals last summer at the EURO 2020 but eventually lost to England. The Danish Superliga and the Polish Extraklasa are more or less equal in terms of the teams average class.. However, as for Bröndby the situation looks worse.. They are quite far from the level they were at some years ago and only finished in fourth place last season and grabbed just 48 points in total this is whopping 20 points less than the champions FC Copenhagen. Even Midjylland, who finished in second, grabbed 17 more points.. The Superliga started last week-end and today’s hosts lost to Nordsjaelland 1-3 at home as favorites according to the betting market.

Pogon Szczecin, on the other hand, played a very strong season in their domestic league finishing 3rd after Lech Poznan and Rakow. I was positively surprised by their level and have updated my power ratings, that illustrate the teams pure class, accordingly! They were very unlucky to lose to Slask Wroclav 1-2 away from home in the league season opener some four days ago despite being clearly the better and especially offensively more dangerous team. They recorded close to 60% ball possession and much more attacks and dangerous attacks. In the 2021-2022 season they grabbed a total of respectable 65 points to their account and good a very good goal difference of 63:31. They are not the most well-known Polish team globally, have not achieved huge success in Europe in the past and not do they have the biggest financial resources – not to mention most famous players. These are probably at least one of the reasons behind them being under-valued by the bookies here. The odds have been going doing today though as smart money is piling up on the visitors. Pogon Szczecin would definitely have deserved a win in the first leg - by at least one goal’s difference. They created more in expected goals, recorded clearly more shots on target and scoring attempts as well as had 58% ball possession and much more attacks and dangerous attacks. Brondby will surely improve in Denmark but I cannot see them being the favorites here even in front of their fans – for me it is a coin toss 50-50%. Indeed, the smart bet here is Pogon Szczecin with the +0.5 goals handicap with a high chance of winning!