Club Brugge VS KA Akureyri

Club Brugge welcome KA Akureyri for this UEFA Conference League qualification semi-finals first leg battle at Jan Breydel Stadion. The hosts are a Belgian team and the visitors come from the small country of Iceland. This is the third-highest of UEFA's club competitions after the iconic Champions League and the Europa League. When the competition was launched a few years ago there were many sceptics – would the fans, the bigger or even middle-sized European clubs really be interested in this competition.. Well, I have to admit that I was one of those sceptics despite being happy about the increased chance of smaller teams, for example from my home country, Finland – or possibly even from Iceland - to play in a group stage of an UEFA tournament and make some money in the process.. However, I must admit that us sceptics were proved mostly wrong! Yes, the biggest clubs from say England (West Ham), Italy (Roma) etc. do sometimes rotate the squad pretty heavily in the Conference League group stage games - especially against lowly opponents -  but the same is true also in the Champions League if there is nothing at stake in terms of qualification for the playoffs.. My point here is that even Roma as a club and their legendary coach, Jose Mourinho, were very happy about winning the Conference League in 2022 when they beat a Dutch team, Feynoord, in the final! I believe Brugge, who are, of course, not an elite European club in terms of past success in Europa, the list of players – or the estimated market value of the squad according to a well-known and respected source, a German website Transfermarkt.com, would love to win this competition in 2024. They have a realistic chance to do this! Indeed, their players have a total market value of around 141 million euros – much less than for example that of the Roma or West Ham squad.. In my opinion the 141 million is still too low though and I would say 165-170 would be a more realistic number..

Let's not forget that Brugge qualified for the Champions League Play Offs last season. In the group stage they took more points than two big teams – Atletico Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen - and finished in 2md place behind Porto! What an amazing run it was! In the Belgian Jupiler Pro League they did not do as well though and finished in 4th place. It is clear that the Champions League games affected their concentration and physical readiness in their domestic league.. KA Akureyri's players have a total market value of just around two million! This is less than any team in the Finnish Veikkausliiga, which is of low level by international standards – as many of my fans probably know by now.. I do not often recommend a bet on a heavy favorite with a big handicap but this match is on exception. I expect the hosts to win by a difference of 3-5 goals as the difference in all areas of the game is staggering - too big for the visitors to really be able to compete here! The hosts have a clearly over 70% chance of covering the recommended -2.5 goals handicap! They will surely want to "destroy" the visitors here in front of demanding fans and then relax a bit in the second leg and let the young players have a chance to prove their skills.. Even so, I believe the hosts' coach to do some squad rotation here but Brugge do have a deep squad full of talent! I want to highlight that the Icelandic Besta Deild Karla is one of the worst first tiers in Europe. Furthermore, the best teams in this league, Vikingur, Valur and Breidablik do sometimes play decent games in Europe against much better teams.. However, these surprises have almost always happened at home and not against teams of Brugge's caliber but against teams with a total players' total market value of around 15-40 million euros. Akureyri are currently in 8th place in the Besta Deild Karla and are much worse than the top-3 in this league.. Club Brugge easily qualified over a dangerous Danish team, Aarhus, in the previous round of qualification, 3-1 on aggregate. At home they crushe the visitors 3-0 recording 11 shots on goal - the Aarhus failed to record any! Yes, they were the favorites, priced around 1.80 to win, but I was still impressed by their offense - against a pretty good defense - and motivation to fight for every ball! I want to mention that the Danish Superliga is of pretty good level – better than many football fans realize..

布鲁日俱乐部VS阿库雷里

布鲁日俱乐部欢迎阿库雷里参加在布雷德尔球场举行的欧足联资格赛半决赛首回合比赛。东道主是比利时队，客队来自小国冰岛。这是欧足联第三高的俱乐部赛事，仅次于标志性的欧冠和欧联杯。几年前这项赛事刚开始的时候，有很多人持怀疑态度——球迷、大型甚至中型的欧洲俱乐部真的会对这项赛事感兴趣吗?嗯，我必须承认，我是那些怀疑论者中的一员，尽管我很高兴看到一些较小的球队，比如我的祖国芬兰——甚至可能是冰岛——有更多的机会参加欧足联锦标赛的小组赛，并在这个过程中赚一些钱。然而，我必须承认，事实证明，我们这些怀疑论者大多是错的!是的，像英格兰(西汉姆联)、意大利(罗马)这样的豪门在联盟联赛小组赛中确实会轮换阵容，尤其是面对实力不强的对手，但在欧冠联赛中，如果没有季后赛资格的威胁，情况也是如此。我想说的是，即使是罗马俱乐部和他们的传奇教练何塞·穆里尼奥，也很高兴在2022年的决赛中击败荷兰球队费诺德，赢得了联盟联赛的冠军!我相信布鲁日，当然，从过去在欧罗巴的成功来看，布鲁日不是欧洲的精英俱乐部，根据一个知名和受人尊敬的消息来源，德国网站Transfermarkt.com，球员名单或球队的估计市场价值，会很乐意赢得2024年的比赛。他们有一个现实的机会做到这一点!事实上，他们球员的总市值约为1.41亿欧元，远低于罗马或西汉姆联队。在我看来，1.41亿仍然太低了，我认为165-170是更现实的数字。

让我们不要忘记布鲁日上赛季获得了欧冠附加赛的资格。在小组赛中，他们比两支强队——马德里竞技和勒沃库森拿到了更多的积分，排在波尔图之后，排名第20位!多么神奇的一次跑步啊!在比利时Jupiler职业联赛中，他们表现不佳，只获得了第四名。很明显，欧冠比赛影响了他们在国内联赛中的注意力和体能状态。阿库雷里球员的总市值只有200万左右!这支球队比芬兰的任何一支球队都要弱，按照国际标准来看，芬兰的球队都是低水平的——我的许多球迷现在可能都知道了……我通常不建议把赌注押在有很大障碍的热门比赛上，但这场比赛是个例外。我希望主队能以3-5球的差距取胜，因为比赛各个方面的差异都是惊人的——对于客队来说，这太大了，他们无法在这里真正竞争!很明显，东道主有超过70%的机会达到建议的2.5个进球障碍!他们肯定想在球迷面前“摧毁”客队，然后在次回合放松一下，让年轻球员有机会证明自己的技术。即便如此，我相信东道主的教练会在这里做一些阵容轮换，但布鲁日确实有一个充满天赋的深度阵容!我想强调的是冰岛的Besta Deild Karla是欧洲最糟糕的一线之一。此外，这个联赛中最好的球队，维金古尔、瓦卢尔和布雷达布里克有时也会在欧洲对阵更好的球队时踢得不错。然而，这些惊喜几乎总是发生在主场，而且不是对阵布鲁日这样的球队，而是对阵球员总市值在1500万至4000万欧元左右的球队。阿库雷里目前在联赛中排名第8，比联赛前三差多了。在上一轮预选赛中，布鲁日俱乐部以总比分3-1轻松击败危险的丹麦球队奥胡斯队出线。在主场，他们3-0击败客队，11次射正，而奥胡斯队却一球未进!是的，他们是最受欢迎的球队，胜率在1.8美元左右，但我仍然对他们的进攻印象深刻——面对一个相当好的防守——以及为每个球而战的动力!我想说的是，丹麦超级联赛的水平相当不错——比许多球迷意识到的要好。