Daejeon Citizen VS Gimcheon Sangmu FC

Daejeon and Gimcheon Sangmu lock horns at Daejeon World Cup Stadium in this fight for a place in the K League 1 for next season first leg Wednesday evening Beijing time. The stakes are of course high. First legs are understandably often pretty cautious football in any country and I expect a defensive battle here as well. The biggest, sharpest bookies with the biggest stake limits have set the goal expectancy at around 2.25 but I would say the correct number is very close to 2.00 goals. The draw is definitely more probable than in K League 1 or K League 2 match or than the betting market estimates. 34% is my estimation for this result which would be enough for my fans and me to win with the recommended +0.5 goals on the visitors. The bookies see the hosts as favorites here but I disagree! Gimcheon Sangmu are narrow favorites in my view. They have an edge in all areas of the game, especially in defense and in terms of midfielders capability to participate in attacking.Taking a look at the teams' records in the latest matches is not too smart here as there is a big gap between K 1 and K 2. I am not sure if the bookies fully recognize this.. The visitors have had a chance to play against massively better opponents than the hosts in K 2. The pace is much faster in K1 but so is the players individual skill-level as well. This should benefit Gimcheon here..

Having said that the K 1 is a much better league than K 2 we must give credit to the visitors for losing just one of their latest six games! This loss came four days ago against Suwon Blue Wings 1-3 at home. Gimcheon Sangmu would have deserved at least a draw though! They were very clear underdogs according to the betting market in this match, priced around 3.5 to win but still had 66% ball possession and also recorded more goal attempts, attacks and dangerous attacks. Before this they faced Daegu away from home and it was a 1-1 draw. The visitors play well and them winning by one goal's difference would not have been unjustified at all. They for example recorded 52 more attacks than the hosts.. Daejeon have not lost a game in K 2 for a long time but have still not fully convinced me. They finished in 2nd place in this league – 14 points behind Gwangju FC and lost eight matches in this pretty low-level league.. Moreover, they grabbed five more points than they would have deserved in terms of expected points.