Celtic set to breeze this tie
Champions and Europa League qualifiers add lots of excitement to this week’s TAB soccer pools and there’s a chance of a couple of upsets and resultant mega payouts.
UEFA Champions League qualifiers add lots of spice to TAB’s range of soccer pools this week and Scottish Premier League giants Glasgow Celtic will be confident of successfully completing their qualification tie against Armenian side Alashkert.
Celtic hold a 3-0 lead with the home leg to come tomorrow and it would take an upset of unprecedented proportions to see them ousted from the competition.
For other fancied teams the path into the next stage is less certain and Serbian side Red Star Belgrade, winners of Europe’s elite club trophy in 1991, face a tricky home second leg against Latvian club Spartaks Jūrmala tonight.
The tie is evenly poised at 0-0 and a single goal for the Latvians will see Red Star needing to score twice to avoid defeat, either on aggregate or the away-goals rule.
TAB soccer punters should expect them to edge the tie by a single goal.
Norwegian champions Rosenborg, who have won a record 25 domestic titles, are behind in their clash against Icelandic club Valur and trailing 1-0 with the home leg to come.
Valur have the likes of Iceland international Birkir Már Saevarsson in their squad and will be a difficult side to break down in a match that could end in a draw.
Polish club Legia Warsaw, who have a rich history of competing on the continent, are 1-0 up over Cork City and should dispatch the Irish side with the home leg to come, while top Finnish side HJK Helsinki lead 2-1 from the away leg against Víkingur Gøta from the Faroe Islands and should win the return fixture comfortably.
The second-leg matches in the first round of the UEFA Europa League also start today and new Glasgow Rangers boss Steven Gerrard faces his first big test as he takes his side to Macedonian outfit Shkupi. Rangers lead 2-0 from the home leg, but this will be a difficult encounter that could well end in a draw.
Maccabi Tel Aviv from Israel are locked in a tough battle with Hungarian side Ferencváros that is level at 1-1 with the match in Tel Aviv to come. It is a close contest, but home advantage should see the Israelis advance.
Finally, FC Copenhagen will be confident of completing the job when they host KuPS of Finland after winning the first leg.
The early rounds of European club competitions can be a lottery for TAB soccer punters with many clubs still essentially doing their pre-season. It is why clubs from the leagues in Sweden, Finland and Norway are often good picks because they are in the middle of their campaigns that generally run from March to November.