The Europa League is back to fill your Thursdays with wall-to-wall soccer action.
It may be Europe's second-tier competition, but that doesn't mean there isn't still a ton of drama and the prize at the end is incredibly valuable for the teams in this competition, as a spot in the Champions League next season is on the line. The past three champions – Villarreal, Frankfurt and Sevilla – wouldn't have qualified for the Champions League if they didn't win this competition.
If you'd like to check out my Europa League Projections, you can find them here. Let's get into my Europa League picks, featuring Sheriff vs Servette and Backa Topola vs Freiburg.
| FC Sheriff Odds | +150 |
| Servette Odds | +200 |
| Draw | +220 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 +100 / -125 |
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What better time than now to buy on a team that is coming off a 6-0 drubbing to Slavia Prague?
The thing about FC Sheriff is they have some of the most drastic home/road splits in Europe of anybody I've seen for a long time. They played four rounds of qualifying to get into the Europa League. They won all four home legs and did not win a single leg outside of Tiraspol.
Sheriff are on a bit of a new manager bounce, bringing in Russian manager Roman Pilipchuk has been huge. He likes to play of a 4-1-4-1, which is a good thing for Sheriff in Europe, because they will continue on with the style they've been playing, which is a low-block counterattacking system.
They played very admirably in their first home match against Roma, basically playing them even on expected goals and creating a big scoring chance that hit the woodwork, but Sheriff ultimately fell 2-1.
Servette is a major fade team given their underlying metrics last season. That has continued into this season as well.
They finished in second place in the Swiss Super League, but their underlying metrics are maybe to worst of anybody in this competition. For context, by UEFA coefficients, Switzerland sits as the 12th-best league across Europe. Servette had a -0.01 xGD per 90 minutes. Not to mention last season they relied on experienced backline players Kevin Mbabu and Gael Clichy. They are now gone from the team. This season they've been better, putting up a +0.44 xGD per 90 minutes, but a lot of the top teams in Switzerland like Basel and Young Boys are way worse than in years past.
They've been pretty throughly dominated in their first two matches, losing a combined 6-0 to Roma and Slavia Prague.
I have Sheriff projected as a -123 favorite, so I like the value on them on them draw no bet.
Pick: FC Sheriff – Draw No Bet (-128 via bet365)
| TSC Backa Topola Odds | +700 |
| Freiburg Odds | -300 |
| Draw | +450 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -175 / +135 |
This is kind of a crazy line.
The Serbian outfit TSC Backa Topola have not been played off the pitch like everyone thought in their first two matches of the group stage against West Ham and Olympiacos. In fact, in their 2-2 draw with Olympiacos they actually won the expected goals battle 1.2 to 0.7. I want to focus on the West Ham match though, because that is the type of opponent they will be facing in Freiburg.
West Ham are by nature a low block/transitional type of team, but the Serbian side forced them to slow the pace down, conceded a ton of possession and dared the Hammers to break them down while sitting in s 5-3-2 out of possession. Guess what? They were successful for a large portion of the match. In the first half, West Ham took 16 shots but only compiled 0.86 xG off of it, with almost every shot being incredibly low quality.
image via fbref.com
Freiburg play a very similar style to that of West Ham where they want to play very direct. However, that strategy isn't working too well in the Bundesliga this season. Freiburg are only averaging 1.19 npxG per 90 minutes, which is 12th in Germany and they are also are dead last in xThreat, which is a measure of how much sustained pressure you are putting on the opponent's penalty area.
Since Freiburg haven't been able to do that offensively and TSC Backa Topola are going to concede a lot of possession to them and dare them to break them down with five guys in the last line of defense, there is no way Freiburg should be laying a goal and a half on the road in Serbia.
So, I like the value on TSC Backa Topola +1.5 at -113.
