Champions League Quali, 2nd round, first leg, Wednesday, 24.07.2024 at 20:15
The first step has been taken, but there are still a few more to go! In our Champions League tips, we have now reached the 2nd round of qualifying, and one or two names are familiar to everyone.
One of them is particularly popular in Slovakia, where we travel to Slovenia on Wednesday. The national colors are very similar, but in my Celje Slovan Bratislava tip I will now tell you why I would not bet on a win here, but more on a BTS
A 2nd round of an international qualifier? In some cases, neither the clubs nor the cities are known! In the case of Slovan Bratislava, however, it’s fair to say that neither is the case.
The club from Slovakia appears very regularly in Europe, but if it goes beyond the group stage, it has nothing to do with the top flight. In the Champions League, in fact, they only participated once in the 1992/93 season
Last season, the team was clearly beaten by Sturm Graz in the intermediate round of the Conference League. So some fans are right to ask: Is the 2024/25 premier class really realistic?
Vladimir Weiss will be back in charge of the team as coach and has not lost any key players. Did Bratislava make any major purchases during the summer break or has the squad changed little or not at all?
A total of 1.2 million euros was spent to sign David Strelec and Julius Szöke. The league starts in Slovakia on the last weekend in July, so the ideal rhythm cannot be there yet.
But in Bratislava there was nevertheless an initial assessment of the situation, as the first round of the qualifiers was already underway. The opponent: Struga, who they managed to get out of the way relatively easily
After the 4:2 win in the first leg, Slovan went into the second game with much less pressure, winning 2:1 to secure their second victory. The aforementioned David Strelec, who was already on loan in 2023/24, immediately made an exclamation mark
He provided two assists in both games, and the results also show that Wednesday could be anything but boring. The neutral spectator would naturally like to see a similar result.
In any case, nobody is really favored on Wednesday. Celje is ahead with average odds of 2.35 to 2.85, but this advantage is not particularly large in view of a home team
NK Celje are taking part in Champions League qualifying for the second time in the club’s history, having tried their luck for the first time in 2020/21. Three years ago, they lost 2-1 to Molde in Round 2, but there was no second leg due to coronavirus.
The Slovenians kicked off their new league season last Sunday with a narrow 2:1 win over NK Bravo. The win came after falling behind, with Armandas Kucys scoring the decisive goal in the 89th minute
The team had already made it through the first round of the CL qualifiers. Everything was already clear after the first leg (5:0) against FC Flora, but Celje also won the second encounter 2:1.
This means that at least two goals were scored in all three games of the season, and it is also interesting to note that five different players were responsible for five goals in the first leg against Flora – so the burden is shared by all
Admittedly, neither NK Celje nor Slovan Bratislava are teams that we regularly welcome to the Champions League, quite the opposite. However, one of the two teams will now advance to the 3rd qualifying round.
In my opinion, these are two clubs that are definitely on an equal footing. The games in the 1st round in particular show that they are often on the offensive – 13 goals in four games speaks volumes!
I therefore assume that both Celje and Bratislava know where the opponent’s box is and are not just defending. That’s why I’ve decided to recommend the following classic to you:
Both teams score their goal!
