Rigas Futbola Skola (RFS) vs Hearts

RFS and Hearts fight for important points in this Conference League group stage round 2 clash at NSB Arkādija early Friday morning Beijing time. This is the third highest of UEFA’s club competitions after Champions League and Europa League. The hosts are the reigning champions of Latvia and are often under-valued by the bookies. The visitors finished third in the Scottish Premiership but we must remember that this league is of bad quality behind the dominant giants Celtic and Rangers. Even these two - not to mention other Scottish clubs - rarely do well away from home Indeed, the gap to Celtic was a whopping 32 points. Hearts are in bad form and have lost six of their latest seven matches! In their most recent they got completely trashed at home by Turkish Basaksehir. The final score was 0-4 and does reflect the events on the pitch. Basaksehir were the favorites on the betting market, priced around 1.95 to win but surely everyone expected a much more balances battle than we witnessed. The Turks had close to 70% ball possession and recorded 23 goal attempts - the Scottish hosts had just four. Basaksehir also recorded seven shots on target – the pathetic hosts managed just one! The visitors also recorded over 700 completed passes – an amazing number at this level.

Before the opening round of this competition they were horribly bad offensively and lost 0-1 to Livingston away from home as clear favorites failing to record any shots on target. Hearts would have to improve a lot especially offensively to win here but seem to lack any creativity near the opponent's goal. RFS, on the other hand, have picked up fine form and swept past Spartaks (3-0) at home in their most recent match. They have not lost any of their latest 10 games! Before crushing Spartaks they robbed a point in Italy – forcing Fiorentina – priced below 1.10 to win to an embarrassing 1-1 draw! They were forced to defend a lot but did so very well and are solid favorites here against an opponent who are about the same level by with today’s expected lineups. With the recommended handicap of +0.5 goals on the hosts my fans and I have a 73% chance of winning for the 8th time in a row!