No less than 35 Europa League ties taking place on Thursday evening and there is action right across Europe as a host of clubs seek progression to the tournament proper.
The likes of Liverpool, Aston Villa and Borussia Dortmund, all former European Cup winners, take to the pitch but it is Hadjuk Split that catch my eye and the Croatian side must be supported at 1.73 to get the better of an out-of-sorts Unirea Urziceni.
Unirea, who performed so well in the Champions League last year, beating both Rangers and Sevilla before narrowly missing out on a place in the knockout stages, have started the new campaign disastrously and were dumped out of Europe’s premier club competition by Zenit.
A 1-0 aggregate loss to the fast-improving Russians was no disgrace but Unirea, now managed by Israeli Ronny Levy, who replaced Dan Petrescu, have failed to score a single goal in six competitive matches this term and something is clearly amiss.
Unirea face a Hadjuk Split team that were pipped to the title domestically last season by Dinamo Zagreb but Thursday’s host have been quick out of the blocks this time around and clearly mean business both at home and abroad.
A 3-1 first leg defeat in Bucharest to Dinamo was impressively turned around on home soil to set up this tie and Hadjuk have roared to the summit of the Croatian top flight in its early stages with three thumping consecutive victories.
Ten goals scored and none conceded in that time indicate that Hadjuk are clearly in good heart and they’ll once more look to the goals of Bosnian international Senijad Ibricic. The playmaker has three goals to his name already this term, was on target 17 times in 09/10 and is the notable exception of a side almost exclusively comprising of home-grown talent.
Having tasted defeat just once on home soil in the past 12 months, winning 18 of their last 21 matches and scoring 54 goals in the process, the Gradski stadion u Poljud is clearly something of a fortress and Unirea won’t be relishing the trip is such poor form.
Just four away wins for the Romanians in their previous 14 away games doesn’t bode well either and Hadjuk look like a solid investment on a night where there are any number of decent punting opportunities given the volume of games taking place.
3pts Back Hadjuk Split (vs. Unirea Urziceni) @ 1.73 (Betfair)