KuPS Kuopio vs Union Berlin

Finnish KuPS from the city of Kuopio welcome visitors from Germany for this UEFA Conference League qualification fourth round first leg at the fully renovated Helsinki Olympic Stadium. This is perhaps the biggest match ever for KuPS who have never played in the group stage in any of UEFA's club competitions. However, I strongly believe the Germans are way too strong here! The match being played in Helsinki decreases home advantage slightly and we must also remember there is a surprisingly big number of Union Berlin fans even in Finland so visitors will have support here. A quite big number of tickets have already been sold for home supporters and visitors' fans alike. Let's take a closer look at the match..KuPS beat a lowly opponent Armenian Noah in the first round of qualification with ease despite losing in Armenia 0-1. However, at home they crushed Noah 5-0. After that they beat a strong team from Ukraine, Vorskla Poltava. The first leg in Finland was a 2-2 draw and Ukraine KuPS made it 2-2 in the last minutes of the match and scored the 3-2 winning goal in the 30 minutes extra match. However, overall Poltava were the better team and KuPS had some luck to advance. In the previous round KuPS managed to defeat a very good team - and a much bigger team by players' total market value. The opponent they beat was FC Astana from Kazakhstan. In Helsinki it was a 1-1 draw and KuPS were perhaps slightly better overall. Last Thursday KuPS won 4-3 in Nur-Sultan in a super eventful match. Astana have even played in the Champions League and Europa League group stage some years ago so KuPS' achievement is great indeed. Astana were leading 2-0 at half-time and were controlling the match. However, KuPS legend Brazilian center-forward Lucas Ragnel scored three goals to make it 3-3 and a few minutes later Latvian Janis Ikaunieks scored the winning goal and KuPS surprisingly advanced to the next round. However, I think their run ends here. Even against Astana, who were not even nearly as good as Union Berlin, KuPS once again had luck on their side beating Astana and most definitely did not create even close to four goals in goal expectancy in the second leg!

Union Berlin rather surprisingly finished 7th in the very high-level German Bundesliga last season and are a rising team in Germany. Overall the Bundesliga is a much better league than the Finnish Veikkausliiga. Hypothetically speaking KuPS would surely have no success even in the 2. Bundesliga and would perhaps struggle even one level below that.. I have followed both Veikkausliiga and Bundesliga closely for some thirty years and do know the teams extremely well. The pace in Bundesliga is "from another planet" compared to that in Veikkausliiga! The players' individual skill level is also a lot better and most teams are very good tactically as well. I expect Union Berlin strikers, experienced Max Kruse, 30 and the very talented Taiwo Awoniyi, 24 to be too good for KuPS' defense to keep at bay for the full ninety minutes and the Germans should score at least twice here. Last week-end Union Berlin played a 1-1 draw at home versus a tough opponent and a much bigger team Bayer Leverkusen whose players' estimated market value is over 300 million euros. Union Berlin are not a traditional big club in Germany and - unlike perhaps some even bigger clubs in Europe - would surely love to play in the Conference League group stage! So their motivation must be high here. However, I believe the betting market fails to fully realize how much better than KuPS they should be offering as a chance for another value bet.Let's also take a quick look at some numbers too to show the difference in raw class between the KuPS and Union Berlin. According to the respected and well-known German website Transfermarkt.com Union Berlin's players have a total market value of 87.50 million euros whereas KuPS' players are valued at only 5.68 million euros. I would in fact estimate Union Berlin's team is even more valuable than the 87.50 million. While the total market of a team's players does not fully reflect the overall class of a team as older but still very good players, like Ballon d'Or winner Lionel Messi or the Italian legend and fresh European Champion Chiellini, are less valuable than their true current value on the pitch. On the other hand, young promising future star players like Manchester United's Jadon Sancho, 21 have a higher market value than their current level in action would indicate. However, a team's players' total market value still does give us a good picture on how good the team is.

To sum up, the Germans are massive favorites here and my pick for my fans is Union Berlin -1.5 goals handicap. They have at least 56% chance of winning by at least two goals.

本译文使用有道机器翻译，仅供参考：

来自库奥皮奥市的芬兰人在翻修一新的赫尔辛基奥林匹克体育场欢迎来自德国的游客，参加欧足联联赛资格赛第四轮首回合比赛。对于从来没有参加过欧足联俱乐部比赛的球队来说，这可能是最大的一场比赛。然而，我坚信德国人在这里太强大了!在赫尔辛基进行的比赛稍微削弱了主场优势，我们也必须记住，即使在芬兰也有大量的柏林球迷，所以客队会在这里得到支持。相当多的门票已经卖给了主场球迷和客队球迷。让我们来仔细看看这场比赛，尽管以0-1输给了亚美尼亚，但在资格赛的第一轮比赛中，该队轻松击败了地位较低的对手亚美尼亚诺亚方舟。然而，他们在主场以5-0击败了诺亚。之后，他们击败了乌克兰的强队沃尔斯克拉·波尔塔瓦。在芬兰的第一回合比赛中，两队打成2比2平，乌克兰队在比赛的最后几分钟将比分改写为2比2，并在加时赛的30分钟内以3比2的比分赢得比赛。然而，总体来说，Poltava是一个更好的团队，并且该团队也有一些进步。在之前的一轮比赛中，该球队击败了一支非常优秀的球队，而这支球队的球员总市值要大得多。他们击败的对手是哈萨克斯坦的阿斯塔纳队。在赫尔辛基的比赛是1-1平局，而从整体上看，up可能稍微好一些。上周四，上个星期天，上个星期天，上个星期天，上个星期天，上个星期天，上个星期天，上个星期天，上个星期天，上个星期天，上个星期天，上个星期天。阿斯塔纳甚至在几年前参加过冠军联赛和欧罗巴联赛的小组赛，所以KuPS的成就确实是伟大的。阿斯塔纳在上半场以2-0领先，并控制了比赛。然而，该队的传奇巴西中锋卢卡斯·拉格内尔(Lucas Ragnel)进了三个球，将比分改写为3-3。几分钟后，拉脱维亚人詹尼斯·伊考涅克斯(Janis Ikaunieks)攻入制胜一球，该队意外晋级下一轮。然而，我认为他们的行动到此为止。即使是对阵阿斯塔纳，他们甚至没有联盟柏林那么好，KuPS再次幸运地击败了阿斯塔纳，大多数人肯定没有创造接近4个进球预期在第二回合!

令人惊讶的是，柏林联盟上赛季在德甲联赛中排名第七，在德国是一支正在崛起的球队。总的来说，德甲联赛比芬兰的维科联赛要好得多。假设来说，即使在2中，KuPS也肯定不会成功。德甲，甚至可能比德甲低一级。我已经密切关注维考斯利加和德甲近30年了，对这两支球队非常了解。与维考斯利加相比，德甲的节奏简直是“来自另一个星球”!球员的个人技术水平也提高了很多，大多数球队的战术也很好。我认为柏林联盟的前锋，30岁的Max Kruse，和24岁的Taiwo Awoniyi，都很有天赋，他们的防守太好了，不可能在整个90分钟里阻止德国队的进攻，德国人应该至少进两个球。上个周末，联盟柏林队在主场1-1战平了实力强大的对手勒沃库森，勒沃库森的球员估计市值超过3亿欧元。柏林联盟在德国并不是一个传统的大俱乐部，不像欧洲一些更大的俱乐部，它肯定会喜欢在联盟小组赛阶段踢球!所以他们的动机一定很高。然而，我认为投注市场没有充分意识到，作为另一个价值押注的机会，他们应该提供比加价高多少的机会。让我们也快速看一下一些数据，以显示up和Union Berlin之间的原始级别差异。根据德高望重的德国网站Transfermarkt.com的数据，联盟柏林队的球员总市值为8750万欧元，而up队的球员市值仅为568万欧元。事实上，我估计柏林联盟队的价值甚至比8750万美元还要高。虽然整个市场团队的球员并不完全反映团队的整体类旧但仍然很好的球员,像金球奖得主梅西或意大利传奇和新鲜的欧洲冠军基耶利尼,不如他们真正有价值的当前值在球场上。另一方面，年轻有前途的未来明星球员，如曼联的贾登·桑乔，21岁，有更高的市场价值，比他们目前的水平在行动。然而，球队球员的总市场价值仍然能让我们清楚地知道这支球队有多优秀。

总而言之，德国球队是这里最受欢迎的球队，我为我的球迷们挑选的是柏林联盟。他们有机会以至少两个进球获胜。