FC Astana VS KuPS Kuopio

FC Astana welcome visitors from Kuopio, Finland at Astana Arena in Nur-Sultan on Thursday for the UEFA Europe Conference league qualification second leg. The first leg last week was a 1-1 draw at Helsinki Olympic Stadium. I of course watched the match and KuPS were slightly better as a team overall. They had 58% ball possession, a few more scoring attempts than Astana and created more expected goals. As expected the visitors had chosen a very cautious approach to the match and are probably quote satisfied with the draw. The UEFA Executive Committee have removed the so-called away goals rule from all UEFA club competitions (men, women and youth) as of the qualifying phases of the 2021/22 competitions so there was no extra motivation for the visitors to take risks to score in Helsinki in the first leg. KuPS, typically for Finnish clubs, played very well as a team in this match but it was clear that at individual level FC Astana's players, especially two offensive players Croatian right-winger Marin Tomasov and Armenian Tigran Barseghyan are a lot better. These two in particular will pose a big threat in the second leg and FC Astana have many other very skilled players too! I expect Astana to be a lot more active on Thursday and choose a more offensive approach to the match, control the ball and allow KuPS very few scoring chances.

Astana prepared for this match last Sunday by beating Kaizar Kyzylorda 1-0 in Kazakhstan Cup fifth round match whereas KuPS played a disappointing 2-2 draw as clear favorites at home versus a mediocre opponent, FC Lahti, in the Finnish Veikkausliiga. Worryingly for KuPS some of their players looked a bit fatigued at times. FC Astana have a lot more quality than KuPS on the bench which of course favors them in a situation where both teams have played quite a lot of matches lately. In the previous round of qualification Astana beat Greek Aris Thessaloniki winning 2-0 in Nur-Sultan, the capital of Kazahstan, after a pretty balanced match. They played well indeed as slight underdogs. Not letting the talented Greeks to score is proof of how good they can be at home! In fact they have won all of their latest five matches at home. Once again I want to highlight the importance of home advantage in international competitions - KuPS have had a long way to travel from Finland to Kazakhstan and have had only two full days to prepare for this very important match.. In the second leg in Greece Astana were clear underdogs and lost 0-2 but managed to qualify through the 30 minutes extra match after a late goal by Albanian Eneo Bitri. Aris Thessaloniki are a lot bigger team than Finnish KuPS, a team that I, as a Finn, know very well and have seen all of their matches in the Finnish Veikkausliiga this season. KuPS defeated Vorskla Poltava as underdogs in the previous round but I must say they had some luck on their side and the Ukrainians were the better team overall.

Lastly let's take a quick look at some numbers too to show the difference in raw class between the two teams: According to the respected and well-known German website Transfermarkt.com FC Astana's players have a total market value of 13.98 million euros whereas the visitors' players are valued at 5.68 million euros. While the total market of a team's players does not fully reflect the overall class of the team as older but still very good players, like Ballon d'Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo or the Italian legend and fresh European Champion Chiellini, are less valuable than young promising future star players like Borussia Dortmund's super star Norwegian Erling Håland, 21, it still does tell a lot about how good the team should be on the pitch in real action!

To sum up, a strong home team who are clearly better by raw class are some 60% favorites to win during 90 minutes on Thursday!

周四，阿斯塔纳在努尔苏丹的阿斯塔纳竞技场欢迎来自芬兰库奥皮奥的库普斯参加欧洲联盟联赛资格赛第二回合。上周的第一回合比赛在赫尔辛基奥林匹克体育场1:1战平。当然，我看了比赛，作为一个整体，我们的表现稍微好一些。他们有58%的控球率，比阿斯塔纳多几次射门，创造了更多的预期进球。正如预期的那样，客队在比赛中选择了非常谨慎的方式，可能对抽签结果感到满意。欧足联执行委员会已经取消了从2021/22赛季预选赛开始的所有欧足联俱乐部比赛(包括男性、女性和青年)中所谓的客场进球规则，因此客队在赫尔辛基首回合比赛中冒险进球的动机就没有了。芬兰俱乐部的球队在这场比赛中表现得非常出色，但显然阿斯塔纳队的球员，尤其是两名攻击型球员，克罗地亚右翼球员马林·托马索夫和亚美尼亚球员蒂格兰·巴尔塞格扬要出色得多。这两名球员将在第二回合中构成巨大的威胁，阿斯塔纳俱乐部也有许多其他非常有技术的球员!我希望阿斯塔纳在周四的比赛中更加活跃，在比赛中选择一种更具进攻性的方式，控球，让对方很少有得分机会。

上周日，阿斯塔纳队在哈萨克斯坦杯第五轮比赛中以1-0击败凯扎尔·克孜洛尔达，为这场比赛做准备。而在芬兰维考斯利加，阿斯塔纳队主场迎战平庸的对手拉赫蒂队，以令人失望的2-2打成平局。令人担忧的是，有些球员看起来有些疲劳。阿斯塔纳在板凳上比上个赛季的高质量多了，这当然有利于他们，因为两队最近都打了很多比赛。在前一轮预选赛中，阿斯塔纳在哈萨克斯坦首都努尔苏丹以2比0击败了希腊人阿里斯·塞萨洛尼基。他们在比赛中表现得确实不错。没有让才华横溢的希腊人进球证明了他们在主场有多棒!事实上，他们在最近的五场主场比赛中都赢了。我想再次强调主场优势的重要性在国际比赛——kup有很长一段路要从芬兰到哈萨克斯坦和只有两天来准备这非常重要的比赛。在对希腊的第二回合比赛中，阿斯塔纳明显处于劣势，0-2输掉比赛，但在加时赛30分钟的比赛中，阿尔巴尼亚人比特里(Eneo Bitri)在最后时刻的进球帮助阿斯塔纳晋级。阿里斯·塞萨洛尼基是一支比芬兰球队大得多的球队，作为芬兰人，我非常了解这支球队，并且看了他们本赛季在芬兰韦考斯利加的所有比赛。在上一轮比赛中，他们以劣势击败了沃斯卡拉。波尔塔瓦，但我必须说，他们的运气不错，乌克兰队整体上表现更好。

最后让我们来看看一些数字也显示两队之间的原始类的差异:根据尊重和著名的德国网站Transfermarkt.com阿斯塔纳的球员总市值1398万欧元而客队球员的价值为568万欧元。球队球员的整体市场并不能完全反映出球队的整体水平，比如金球奖得主克里斯蒂亚诺·罗纳尔多和意大利传奇球星、欧洲新冠军奇耶利尼。与多特蒙德队21岁的超级球星挪威人厄林·哈兰相比，这支球队的价值要小得多。

总而言之，在周四的90分钟里，一个强大的主场球队显然比原始级别的球队更有60%的胜算!