Europa League 2017-2018 3rd qualifying round

[Patty_Schnyder]

especially greek team's matches are very even..very interesting match-up for them...

pao-gabala: pao is not in the level where olisadebe,vlaovic,asanovic,konstantinou etc playing...very far from old pao..gabala is maybe the strongest among unseeded ones..i see 60% for gabala

maccabi-panionios: maccabi mostly eliminates greek teams in the recent years even they wern't favouirite as well...i remember the only team that eliminated them was paok if i am not wrong...panionios is a small but traditional greek team that is mostly well known in basketball of 90's....60%for israilian team...

ukrainian team-paok: that is also difficult match-up about what it is hard to make a kind of prediction..ukrainian league level, budged and challenge is high-leveled than greek league...of course paok is a bigger team whose fans are magnifique (i don't know if they have home court fans restriction again in this round?, cos paok plays 70% of their european home matches in close doors:) 60%for paok...

olympiakos-partizan: it is interesting mostly in out of field wiew in the level of fans riots..maybe delije, gate 13 or 04 can also be included to this pairing...as a turkish guy, i am very interested about this match-up that i will follow all incidents moment by moment before the match game...i see grobari as the favourite out of the pitch, and olympikos in that....possible death information waits us...

aek-cska moscow: very good to see original 21 in european cups after many years they missed..(last year also, they appeared but..)i think they have a president who invest to much, and try to relocate aek among the giants of europe after 90's and 2000's...cska is too big financially..also russian league is maybe 6th or 7th of europe according to money level..i don'T give any credit to aek in this match up..maybe they are the last among 5 greek teams as the percentage of passing this round....

[nogomet]

i will follow all incidents moment by moment before the match game...

Good analysis, though.

[Firnen]

Ukrainian teams bleow 3rd place are shit. PAOK will win easily.
Panionios has a fighting chanche against Maccabi, I hope for the surprise.
Panathinaikos should remove themselves from Europe for at least a decade if they manage to lose again to Qabala.
AEK had a bad draw, no chanche against CSKA, they will continue in the Europa League.
Olympiacos is far better than Partizan. The only issue is in the stands, mostly because Olympiacos has ties with Zvezda and Partizan with PAOK, but because Olympiacos coach is Kosovar as well. The match in Serbia might have crowd issues.

[greenbay]

"Östersunds FK Swe CS Fola Esch Lux 80-20" ??????????? It's a 50-50

Actually it's 20-80 !!!!!!!!!!!

[bugylibicska]

I really hope the Ruzomberok - Everton game will be moved to Trnava - 20 thousand + capacity - otherwise a hopeless adventure to fetch a ticket. Shame on me I never gave them much chance even in the 1st round against Vojvodina and now they are the last Mohikans of Slovakia facing Everton.

[Lurker]

"Östersunds FK Swe CS Fola Esch Lux 80-20" ??????????? It's a 50-50

Actually it's 20-80 !!!!!!!!!!!

A bit tricky one to predict. I was impressed with both teams in the previous round. Fola Esch knocking out Inter Baku and with 4-1 at home can't be overlooked. I know that Baku gave Elfsborg all sorts of trouble some years ago, it took penalties to decide the teams that time. Although, the European first timers Östersund must be the favorites considering their achievement of knocking out the highest seed (ever in the 2nd?) in Galatasaray.
60-40 maybe in Östersund's favor. But it can be tougher than many think. Or Graham Potter in Östersund is just a true genius. It's nevertheless an interesting match-up.

Edit: Östersund seem to have had a bit of a hangover from the Galatasaray fight. They lost with 3-0 away to Djurgården on Sunday. They rested 2 players, but that's not an excuse to be so meh as they were. Let's see if they can step it up a notch again against Fola Esch. Or if they have emptied their tank already?

[JPV]

for those who are interested in predictions:

a comparison between the "best team wins at home, draws away" scenario and reality. i'm trying to do this after each week's games.

Current loser: Turkey (after Galatasaray's surprise elimination)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Overperformers:
Macedonia 1,375
Lithuania 1,375
Poland 1,000
Kazakhstan 1,000
Czech Republic 0,700
France 0,667
Denmark 0,625
Croatia 0,625
Cyprus 0,625
Ireland 0,625
Israel 0,500
Norway 0,500
Luxembourg 0,500
Russia 0,400
Slovenia 0,375
Montenegro 0,375
Ukraine 0,300
Germany 0,286
Azerbaijan 0,250
Bulgaria 0,125
Bosnia-Herzegovina 0,125
Malta 0,125
Greece 0,100

(countries like France, who didn't play, overperform because some unseeded teams became seeded when Galatasaray was eliminated)




Underperformers:
Turkey -3,400
Scotland -1,000
Moldova -0,875
Andorra -0,833
Serbia -0,750
Belarus -0,625
Estonia -0,625
Sweden -0,500
Latvia -0,500
Northern Ireland -0,500
Kosovo -0,500
Iceland -0,375
Finland -0,375
Georgia -0,375
Wales -0,375
San Marino -0,333
Hungary -0,250
Armenia -0,250
Switzerland -0,200
Faroe Islands -0,125

Neutral:
Spain 0,000
England 0,000
Italy 0,000
Portugal 0,000
Belgium 0,000
Netherlands 0,000
Austria 0,000
Romania 0,000
Liechtenstein 0,000
Slovakia 0,000
Albania 0,000
Gibraltar 0,000

[OMfan]

About Oostende a team that i don't know.
Would Belgian friends tell me more about.
I know their best striker is gone and i know too that they are fast in counter strike.
Is it a dangerous team? Is it a team that support pressure? What is its level compared to standart or Anderlecht?

Thank you already for your answers.

[abzpablo]

Austria Wien Aut AEL Limassol Cyp 60-40
Aberdeen Sco Apollon Limassol Cyp 40-60
AEK Larnaca Cyp Dinamo Minsk Bls 60-40

Again lady luck smiled for the Cypriot teams this round. Apollon and AEK should proceed against those opponents and as for AEL things are a little bit more hard, but surely not impossible.

40-60! We'll see - I mentioned previously that it was impressive how well Cypriot clubs had done in recent seasons, and that we would likely be second favourites if we drew one of them - which is vastly changed days from my visit there in 1990 when we beat Salamina 5-0 on agg (my first ever away trip following AFC in Europe).

Apollon Limassol seem to have several South American and Spanish players - but I see their league attendances are only around 2,700 and this game will be moved to Larnaca - will they have a decent home backing? I think a lot of Aberdeen fans quite fancy this trip - but hotels are not easy to find around there at this time of year unless you go on a week-long holiday.

Aberdeen have produced some very good away results in the past three seasons, but always seem to come unstuck in QR3. But for a penalty miss and some ludicrous refereeing in Slovenia, we would have beaten Maribor at this stage last season, and I think this may be our time to go one step further.

I feel we are going to have to do the business at home for a change, which means a great performance in front of a big crowd on Thursday night.

[dnina10]

About Oostende a team that i don't know.
Would Belgian friends tell me more about.
I know their best striker is gone and i know too that they are fast in counter strike.
Is it a dangerous team? Is it a team that support pressure? What is its level compared to standart or Anderlecht?

Thank you already for your answers.

KV Oostende are not near as good as the Anderlecht, Club Brugge, Standard, etc. They had a lucky season last season. They are not good enough to tackle Marseille. That would be a massive upset. Last season, The Coasters defeated Racing Genk (one of last season's Europa League quarter finalists) in a playoff for this spot. Genk had several injuries and would have beaten them with their best team. Overall, Marseille should not have any problems against Marseille.

[OMfan]

Just hope you're right.
I'm always worried of those qualifying games at the beginning of the season.
I'm a lot more confident about group phase where as we don't know the groups yet.

French teams had been ridiculous so often against unknown eastern teams that i'm very cautious.
I'm worried to about the attendance. The velodrome could be empty. Less than 15000 tickets solds for now...

[zwezwe]

Austria Wien Aut AEL Limassol Cyp 60-40
Aberdeen Sco Apollon Limassol Cyp 40-60
AEK Larnaca Cyp Dinamo Minsk Bls 60-40

Again lady luck smiled for the Cypriot teams this round. Apollon and AEK should proceed against those opponents and as for AEL things are a little bit more hard, but surely not impossible.

40-60! We'll see - I mentioned previously that it was impressive how well Cypriot clubs had done in recent seasons, and that we would likely be second favourites if we drew one of them - which is vastly changed days from my visit there in 1990 when we beat Salamina 5-0 on agg (my first ever away trip following AFC in Europe).

Apollon Limassol seem to have several South American and Spanish players - but I see their league attendances are only around 2,700 and this game will be moved to Larnaca - will they have a decent home backing? I think a lot of Aberdeen fans quite fancy this trip - but hotels are not easy to find around there at this time of year unless you go on a week-long holiday.

Aberdeen have produced some very good away results in the past three seasons, but always seem to come unstuck in QR3. But for a penalty miss and some ludicrous refereeing in Slovenia, we would have beaten Maribor at this stage last season, and I think this may be our time to go one step further.

I feel we are going to have to do the business at home for a change, which means a great performance in front of a big crowd on Thursday night.

I think there might a slightly bigger crowd against Aberdeen on Thursday
Dont think its that big of a deal that day play in Larnaca to be honest. But of course its never optimal to move from hometurf.
I dont understand why they havent renovated this Tsirio Stadium and made it so it has the requirments of UEFA standard.

[Dragonite]

Just hope you're right.
I'm always worried of those qualifying games at the beginning of the season.
I'm a lot more confident about group phase where as we don't know the groups yet.

How can you be confident about the group stage with a record of 5-2-11 in group stages over the last five seasons?!
That’s only 17 points in 18 matches, below one point per game; I don’t see any reason for optimism after looking at these numbers…

[JPV]

Just hope you're right.
I'm always worried of those qualifying games at the beginning of the season.
I'm a lot more confident about group phase where as we don't know the groups yet.

French teams had been ridiculous so often against unknown eastern teams that i'm very cautious.
I'm worried to about the attendance. The velodrome could be empty. Less than 15000 tickets solds for now...

I can assure you Oostende is a level lower than Anderlecht/Bruges/Standard. They have a good coach (Vanderhaeghe, former player of Anderlecht) and use some decent "leftovers" from other Belgian clubs, but normally it should be a walk in the park for Marseille, that's what Belgian press is thinking.

BUT: You can compare them to Zulte Waregem, a team who defeated Wigan Athletics and APOEL Nicosia (when they were decent). Once in a while, they can produce some good results, so don't underestimate them, but they are no better than nr 10 from the French competition...

[jmf]

Just hope you're right.
Less than 15000 tickets solds for now...

Well it's huuuuuge !
In Oostende, with 8500 tickets, the stadium is sold out