Sligo Rovers VS Hafnarfjordur

Sligo Rovers from Ireland welcome Icelandic Hafnarfjordur at the Showgrounds stadium on Thursday for the UEFA Europa Conference qualification second leg. This is a battle between two very small teams by European standards. The match will probably be not great entertainment for football fans to watch but betting-wise the odds look interesting indeed! A physical and relatively low-scoring clash is expected.

The 1st leg last week in Iceland was a balanced one and Hafnarfjordur escaped with a narrow 1-0 win at the end with the Scottish striker Steven Lennon's late goal. Sligo Rovers Greg Bolger's second yellow card on the 77th minute probably turned out to be very costly for the Irish side. Without the sending off a draw would have been a very likely result and probably a justified one too in terms of expected goals. I would say Sligo were just slightly better overall but the Icelandic hosts had a very well-organized defense which is in fact typical for Icelandic clubs and their national team too. The hosts have to win this match and this will not be easy at all. With the home advantage they are some 46-47% favorites but not more than that and there is very good value on visitors +0.5 goals handicap.

Sligo were not too creative in offense last week and whilst I do think they will improve at home Hafnarfjordur will not be easy to break and they do defend a lot better than most teams Sligo face in their domestic league regularly. In my opinion the visitors have been playing slightly below their true class lately and they too should be able to enhance their football, especially offensively. This is a very big match for both teams indeed and both should be very motivated! I have also seen in the past how deadly Hafnarfjordur can be on counter attacks and they will surely get their chances if Sligo fail to take the lead and will have to take more risks on the second half to keep their qualification hopes alive. The Icelandic Pepsideild is not a great league by European standards but it has still improved overall in the past ten years. Ireland on the other hand are a decent football as a whole but I the Irish Premier Division, which I follow regularly, remains pretty low-level as all the best players go to play abroad, mainly in England. I have noticed in the past that Irish teams are often over-valued by the betting market in international competitions.

To sum up, I recommend my fans to place another value bet - this time on the Icelandic visitors.

本译文使用有道机器翻译，仅供参考：

来自爱尔兰的Sligo Rovers周四在Showgrounds体育场迎战冰岛的Hafnarfjordur参加欧联资格赛第二回合的比赛。以欧洲的标准来看，这是两支非常小的球队之间的较量。这场比赛可能不是球迷们观看的娱乐，但博彩的赔率看起来确实很有趣!预计会有一场身体上的、得分相对较低的冲突。

上周在冰岛的第一回合比赛是平衡的，哈夫纳峡湾在最后关头凭借苏格兰前锋史蒂文·列侬的进球险胜冰岛。格雷格·博尔格在第77分钟得到的第二张黄牌可能让爱尔兰队付出了巨大的代价。如果没有红牌，平局将是一个很有可能的结果，也可能是一个合理的预期进球。我想说的是斯莱戈总体上稍微好一点，但东道主冰岛的防守组织得非常好，这实际上是冰岛俱乐部和他们的国家队的典型特点。东道主必须赢得这场比赛，这一点也不容易。由于主场优势，他们有46-47%的人气，但不会超过这一点，客队+0.5个进球是非常好的价值。

斯莱戈在上周的进攻中不是很有创造力，虽然我认为他们会在主场有所提高，但哈夫纳夫约尔不是那么容易攻破的，而且他们的防守比斯莱戈在国内联赛中经常面对的大多数球队都要好得多。在我看来，客队最近的表现略低于他们真正的水平，他们也应该能够提高他们的足球水平，特别是在进攻端。这对双方来说都是一场非常重要的比赛，双方都应该很有动力!我过去也看到过哈夫纳峡湾的反击是多么致命，如果斯莱戈没有取得领先，他们肯定会有机会，他们将不得不在下半场冒更大的风险，以保持晋级希望。按照欧洲的标准，冰岛的Pepsideild并不是一个伟大的联盟，但它在过去的十年里总体上仍在进步。另一方面，爱尔兰足球整体上是不错的，但我经常参加的爱尔兰甲级联赛水平仍然很低，因为所有最好的球员都去国外踢球，主要是在英格兰。我过去注意到，在国际比赛中，爱尔兰队经常被博彩市场高估。

总之，我建议我的粉丝们这次押在来自冰岛的客队身上。