Europa League Quali, 2nd round, second leg, Thursday, 01.08.2024 at 20:00
The first leg was clearly not enough for Rijeka. The club from Croatia was considered the clear favorite against the Romanian second division side, but was unable to confirm this assessment.
So without any goals, they go into the second leg, for which I’m sending my HNK Rijeka Hunedoara betting tip in a similar direction.
It didn’t take me long to decide on the odds of 2.35 and the bet on “Under 2.5 goals in the match” in the Oddset app
Last year, HNK Rijeka shook up the Croatian league with an extremely young team and finished second in the table.
Zeljko Sopic’s players even maneuvered their way into the cup final, but were defeated by the favorites, Dinamo Zagreb (0:0, 1:3).
The expectations of the HNK Rijeka team were correspondingly high, perhaps too high. In any case, I won’t be wasting my sports betting bonus on the paltry odds of 1.30 for a home win.
It’s easy to see why Hunedoara are the underdogs in this match-up. The Romanians are part of the second division at home. In the Bet365 app, for example, you can find win odds of 6.00.
If Hunedoara had been eliminated in the first qualifying round, it probably wouldn’t have surprised anyone in Europe.
However, the Romanians lived up to the reputation they earned last year as a cup team and advanced to the second round with a 4:2 (4:0, 0:2) win over Paksi FC.
Coach Florin Maxim has been on and off the touchline for the visitors since 2021 and seems to instill an irrepressible belief in the players
After three qualifiers, Hunedoara have already gone two matches without conceding a goal and do not appear to be easy to play against.
HNK Rijeka also experienced this in their first match, when Sopic’s charges were unable to score more than 0.8 expected goals.
If you want to bet at Betano, a try on “Both teams score: No” is a variant for which I find the odds of 1.82 worthwhile.
The visitors’ defense is difficult to overcome despite their basic offensive alignment (4-3-3). However, the Romanian second-division side were also unable to make their mark in attack.
Hunedoara were content with scoring chances worth 0.5 xG (via Wyscout) in their own stadium and gratefully accepted the 0-0 draw.
This motto also helped the Romanian cup winners to a national triumph last season.
On their way to the first cup in the club’s history, Hunedoara did not concede a goal in four of their last six cup matches
Maxim’s side came close to being promoted to the Romanian top flight, but after finishing second in the regular season, they missed out on the chance in the play-offs.
But back to the first comparison between these two teams. The crowd saw no more than three shots on goal in the entire match.
Hunedoara entrenched themselves around their own sixteen, allowed 18.65 passes per defensive action, but were not punished for it
If Rijeka remain as uncreative in this early phase of the season as they were in the first duel, it could be a long game of patience for the home side.
I say uncreative because the Croatian side averaged shots from more than 21 meters away from the Romanian box
The match is not too difficult to predict. Hunedoara will once again position themselves in front of their own penalty area and test Rijeka’s patience.
As in the first match, I don’t expect any big attacking moves from the Romanians and expect a low-scoring encounter.
My HNK Rijeka Hunedoara betting tip is therefore: “Under 2.5 goals”!
