Puskás Akadémia FC VS Inter Turku

This is the second leg of UEFA Conference League qualification at Pancho Arena between Hungarian Puskas Academy and Inter Turku from Finland. I really do expect the hosts to show their class in front of loud home fans and qualify - hopefully during the 90 minutes of regulation time.

Puskas were the better team already last week at Veritas Stadium in Turku and Inter struggled to create quality scoring chances. However, the opening goal of the match on the second half by promising Inter forward Benjamin Källman, 23, was not a lucky one but a fine individual effort indeed. He along with Inter legend Timo "Furkka" Furuholm are one of the few Inter players I believe could pose a threat to Puskas Academy's solid defense today. Källman's goal keeps Inter's hope for qualification alive but I would still be pretty surprised if Inter were to avoid defeat today. Let's take a closer look..

Finnish teams in general struggle almost always away from home. Yes, there are surprise results here and there of course as there are four teams from Finland playing international qualification rounds every year but normally the team to avoid defeat or even win against a lot stronger opponents is HJK Helsinki, clearly the best Finnish club for decades now except for a few bad seasons. I see Inter's defense too weak for this level and whilst they managed to limit Puskas Academy's scoring chances to a relatively small number in Turku last week I expect the Hungarians to put merciless pressure on Inter Turku's defense right from the start!

Puskas were surprisingly cautious in Turku and probably pretty okay with the draw. There was no huge extra motivation to try to score more goals as UEFA has dropped the away goals rule it introduced for the Cup Winners' Cup in 1965-66. Today Puskas have they have their enthusiastic and demanding fans behind them and surely do not want to play an always unpredictable extra 30 minutes, let alone penalties. The Hungarian OTP Bank League is overall clearly more competitive than the Finnish Veikkausliiga that I, as Finn, follow very closely. Both players' individual skill level and the tempo are one or two classes higher than in Veikkausliiga. Finnish teams do play well as team and are capable of stubborn defending and Inter are not without a chance today but Puskas are still heavy favorites. The OTP Bank league is has not started yet which is a small negative factor for the hosts but a competitive match last week should help them here and they have played good friendly matches beating for example a tough Romanian team CFR Cluj on the 22th of June 1-0 and overall Puskas' players seem to be in very good physical shape.

Lastly let's take a look at some numbers too to show the difference in raw class between the two teams: According to the respected and well-known German website Transfermarkt.com Puskas Acedymy's players have a total market value of 11.88 million euros whereas the visitors' players are valued at 2.90 million euros. While the total market of a team's players does not fully reflect the overall class of the team as older but still very good players, like Ballon d'Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo or the Italian legend and fresh European Champion Chiellini, are less valuable than young promising future star players like Man United's Marcus Rashford, 23, it still does tell a lot about how good the team should be on the pitch in real action!

To sum up, the hosts are stronger in every area of the game and have substantial home advantage and some 66-67% chance of winning.