Rigas Futbola skola RFS) VS Linfield

RFS welcome Linfield for this final round of UEFA Conference League qualification first leg clash at Daugavas stadions in Riga. Riga are a Latvian team and the visitors come from Northern Ireland. I would be very surprised to see Linfield qualify here and believe that the hosts have a good chance to “finish” the visitors with a clear home win. Even 3-0 or 4-0 would not be a big surprise. Riga have a 69% chance of winning here. The hosts are superior in all areas of the game. However, the biggest difference is in offensively capability – especially in the strikers’ individual skill level. Linfield’s strikers are also too slow and their attack as a whole lacks creativity and tempo. Furthermore, the Latvian Optibet Virsliga is much better than the NIFL Premiership. In their most recent match RFS crushed Tukums 2000 4-1 in a Latvian Cup quarter-finals match after a very solid performance. NIFL Premiership has only just started - one round has been played. Linfield beat Portadown 4-0 at home four days ago, but I would not get too excited by this performance as the visitors are a very poor team and Linfield were priced around 1.10 on the betting market to win.

In the previous round of qualification, the hosts defeated Scottish team Hibernians who are a much better team than Linfield. They got the job done 4-2 on aggregate and were quite dominant on the pitch in the first leg at home in front of loud fans. The home advantage is massive here as well! The final score was 1-1 though – a very lucky result for Hibernians. RFS had close to 60% ball possession, almost 20 scoring attempts and also much more shots on goal – 7-2. They also recorded much more attacks and especially dangerous attacks - 105-31! In the second leg they finally proved their class result-wise as well taking a fine 3-1 away win and were again clearly the better team. Before the Hibernians matches they played two very balanced matches against a Finnish team, HJK from Helsinki. They lost 0-1 at Bolt Arena but took 2-0 lead in the second half of the second leg at home – match was played in Jurmala - and were controlling the match and had several promising attacks and scoring chances. However, HJK managed to improve after some 70 minutes and made it 2-1 and eventually qualified through penalties. I would say RFS were slightly better in te two matches as a whole.. HJK are a bigger team than RFS by players’ total market value, 9.20 million euros according to Transfermarkt.com. RFS’s number is 8.95 million and the visitors’ number is under three million - too high in my opinion. HJK went on to beat a dangerous team Maribor from Slovenia 3-0 on aggregate and challenge Silkeborg in Europa League qualification today. Linfield, on the other hand, beat a Welsh team in the first round of Champions League qualifies after penalties. TNS are not a strong team. After that Norwegian Bodo Glimt butchered them 8-1 on aggregate. In the Europa League qualies Linfield had no chance at all against Swiss Zurich and lost 0-5 on aggregate creating very little in expected goals. The final scores could have been even more clear in the Swiss's favor.