Cartagena VS Alaves

Cartagena host Alaves for this Spanish LaLiga2 battle at Estadio Municipal Cartagonova early Tuesday morning Beijing time. This is the second tier of Spanish football and is of pretty good level European standards. This is clash between two good teams and should be a quite fun match to watch on a day pretty quiet football day for those not interested in watching the UEFA Nations League.. Both teams are capable of fine attacking football and Cartagena usually aim at controlling the events on the pitch in front of their fans. However, Alaves are such a strong opponent that I expect Cartagena to play less aggressively here. The goal expectancy is only 2.08 and a draw would certainly not be neither a surprise nor a disappointment for neither team. The probability of this result is 33% and would be enough to bring my fans and me the 4th winner in a row with the +0.5 goals handicap option on Alaves. The chance of winning is 72%. Let’s remember that Cartagena do not have the best home crowd in this league.. Yes, the home advantage is there but unlike to the bookies I see Alaves as solid favorites here!

Alaves were relegated from LaLiga after last season and were indeed disappointing finishing in the last place. Cartagena, on the other hand, finished in 9th place in LaLiga2 last season. However, the difference between LaLiga and this league is massive, and I believe Alaves have a very good chance to be promoted back for next season. I rate them as the second- best team in this league in my power rating that illustrate the teams’ pure class. Cartagena are in 10th place in this ranking. Alaves currently top the standings with 14 points and have not lost a single game so far in this league! In their most recent match, they beat a dangerous team, Huesca, at home and did deserve the win. They were not at their best in this match and Huesca did play well but Alaves are so good a team that they take wins even when playing at say 80% level from their best. Before this they took a convincing 1-2 away from home win over Lugo priced at around 2.45 to win on the betting market. They could easily have won by an even bigger margin after 64% ball possession and creating much more shots on target, scoring attempts, passes, completed passes, attacks and especially dangerous attacks – 39-69. Cartagena are massively over-rated here by the bookies perhaps because of the lucky and underserved away from home 1-0 win over a strong team Levante in their most recent game as clear underdogs. They did defend well but only recorded two shots on the hosts’ goal. Levante would have deserved a narrow win. Before this Albacete were the better team by a small margin but Cartagena still took a 2-1 home win. They will surely drop down in the standings from the current 5th place as the season progresses!