Good Morning ☀️,

It’s Lucas here, your Chief Predictions Officer at What Are the Odds?

Today and tomorrow, the second legs of the Europa League and Europa Conference League qualification playoffs are going down. And we’ve got three wonderfully one-sided picks to celebrate. But more on those later.

What’s ahead in today’s edition of What Are the Odds?:

• The full Europa qualification match schedule. 🗓️

• Our top three Europa picks. ✅

Sharing is caring: Help grow the team and show your friends you care — send them this link https://whataretheodds.io/subscribe

Over the next couple of days, we’ve got a great series of Europa Conference League and Europa League matches coming up. (Note: all dates and times are in CEST)

Europa League Qualification Playoff Round

27 Aug Thursday

• 18:00 — Ararat Armenia vs CS Universitatea Craiova

• 18:00 — Iberia 1999 vs Jagiellonia Bialystok

• 19:00 — AC Omonia vs Sint Truiden

• 19:00 — Kauno Zalgiris vs Besiktas

• 19:00 — Lillestrom vs FK Egnatia

• 19:00 — Red Bull Salzburg vs Mjallby

• 19:00 — Viktoria Plzen vs Red Star Belgrade

• 20:00 — AGF Aarhus vs Benfica

• 20:00 — CSKA vs OFI Crete

• 20:00 — FC Thun vs Lech Poznan

• 20:30 — Anderlecht vs Kairat

• 20:30 — Ferencvarosi TC vs Trabzonspor

Europa Conference League Qualification Playoff Round

26 Aug Wednesday

• 18:45 — Rapid Wien vs Hearts

27 Aug Thursday

• 17:00 — Kuopio PS vs Shamrock Rovers

• 18:00 — Baumit Jablonec vs Rangers

• 18:00 — Qarabag FK vs Twente

• 18:00 — Maccabi Tel Aviv vs Lugano

• 18:45 — Monaco vs Gornik Zabrze

• 18:45 — Freiburg vs Motherwell

• 19:00 — Brann vs PAOK FC

• 19:00 — Copenhagen vs Inter Turku

• 19:00 — Hradec Kralove vs Panathinaikos

• 19:00 — Inter Club d'Escaldes vs KF Drita

• 19:00 — Pafos vs FK Dinamo Tirana

• 19:00 — Rakow Czestochowa vs HNK Hadjuk Split

• 19:00 — Riga FC vs KI Klaksvik

• 20:00 — Ajax vs FC Sion

• 20:00 — Hapoel Tel Aviv vs Atalanta

• 20:00 — St Gallen vs FC Nordsjaelland

• 20:30 — Austria Wien vs Braga

• 20:30 — Brighton vs Tromso

• 20:30 — FK Borac Banja Luka vs Vikingur Reykjavik

• 20:45 — HNK Rijeka vs FC Midtjylland

• 21:00 — Hibernian vs Gent

• 21:00 — Larne FC vs Lincoln Red Imps

• 21:00 — Partizan Belgrade vs Getafe

Want to get the best odds on these matches?

⚽ Freiburg vs Motherwell
🏟️ Europa Conference League - Qualification Playoff Round
📅 Thursday 27 August; 18:45 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Freiburg carry a 3-1 aggregate lead into the home leg of this fixture.

  • Freiburg have won their last 3 matches, scoring 8 and conceding just 1 (just 0.3 goals conceded per game).

  • Motherwell have scored 2+ goals in 9 of their last 11 European matches.

• CXSports says: Freiburg is a mid-table German club that reached last season's Europa League final (before losing 3-0 to Aston Villa). And, they currently sit on a 3-1 lead from the first leg which relieves an enormous amount of pressure from them in this game. And, if that wasn’t enough, they’re also now playing at home. Motherwell, on the other hand, has never once reached the group or league phase of a European competition, is on the road, and has a 2-goal deficit to make up. That’s a serious amount of pressure to deal with. And let’s not forget about that experience gap.
  
  Looking more broadly, the numbers generally point in the same direction, too. Freiburg won their last three matches — a 2-0 over Strasbourg, a 3-0 over reigning Conference League holders Crystal Palace, and the 3-1 first leg — all while scoring eight and conceding just once.
  
  Of course, that’s not to say Motherwell is without any shred of hope. After all, they were level at 1-1 at one point in the first leg and looking fully. That is, until defender Martin Moormann was sent off near the hour mark, which gifted Freiburg a penalty that Matthias Ginter (a World Cup winner, of all people to have in your box) put away to bring things to 2-1. And then, a last-minute Goto header made it three to one. And just to make sure we’re giving Motherwell all the credit they deserve, it’s clear they can score. They've managed to bag 2+ goals in 9 of their last 11 European games.
  
  With that said, there’s a couple of stumbling blocks here. First, Motherwell’s 2+ goal record might not mean that much here given they only scored one in the first leg (when they were playing at home!). Then, there’s also the basic dynamics at play here. With a 2-goal deficit, Motherwell now needs to play aggressively. And that will likely mean leaving space at the back against a side that just put three past Crystal Palace.
  
  So expect Motherwell to have a fast and furious twenty or so minutes here where they might even score. However, we expect that, as the game stretches on, they’ll get picked apart by Freiburg.

• Score prediction: 2-1 for Freiburg

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Freiburg Victory

• Odds Range: 1.13-1.26

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (Yes)

• Odds Range: 1.61-1.83

⚽ Kauno Zalgiris vs Besiktas
🏟️ Europa League Qualification Playoff Round
📅 Thursday 27 August; 19:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Besiktas took the first leg of this fixture 3-0, leaving Kauno Zalgiris with a monumental task ahead of them.

  • Besiktas's went six games without conceding to open the season before shipping their first goal and first defeat (0-1 at Alanyaspor) four days before this second leg.

  • Besiktas's first-leg 3-0 was their first three-goal game of the entire season.

• CXSports says: Kauno Zalgiris are the plucky Lithuanian champions — winners of their first-ever domestic title — faced with a monumental task after they scored nothing in the first leg while conceding three. And it’s not like those concessions were a fluke, either (even if 3 is a bit above average for them) — they’ve conceded eleven goals across its last five matches at a rate of 2.2 per game. And now, to stand any chance at getting through the playoffs, they need to reverse both their leaking defense and their flaccid attack in the space of ninety minutes against an opposing side assembled at a cost that dwarfs their entire operating budget.
  
  As for Besiktas — the Istanbul heavyweight that finished third in Turkey's Süper Lig last season before spending the summer importing Arsenal's Leandro Trossard and Juventus's Dušan Vlahović — they’ll be feeling good coming into this with a 3-0 cushion. Particularly given their recent track record — six consecutive clean sheets to open the campaign. Although Alanyaspor finally beat them 1-0 last Sunday on a 73rd-minute header, so who knows… although, that was a league fixture with nothing riding on it beyond pride, while this is one’s a European playoff where the opponent will be driven to desperation given the deficit here.
  
  We also shouldn’t hope for too much from Kauno Zalgiris’ home side, either. Despite being the reigning domestic champs, they’re still a club whose home crowds last season averaged fewer than 700 a game. And with that sort of fan base, it’s hard to see how the home crowd atmosphere could ever be powerful enough to propel them past a Besiktas side whose only job is to stop them scoring.
  
  As such, this one really only has one ending. Besiktas will treat this as a controlled exercise in maintaining their margin. Meanwhile, Kauno Zalgiris will push early because they must (which might even lead to them actually scoring a goal). However, given their stats and the desperation here, we suspect they won’t manage to keep it together, so things could get messy… and not in a good way.

• Score prediction: 1-2 for Besiktas

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Besiktas Victory

• Odds Range: 1.25-1.40

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (Yes)

• Odds Range: 1.88-2.32

⚽ Red Bull Salzburg vs Mjallby
🏟️ Europa League Qualification Playoff Round
📅 Thursday 27 August; 19:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Salzburg's shot advantage in the first leg was 24 to 10, with 8 on target to Mjällby's 1.

  • Salzburg's all-time competitive home record against Swedish clubs is three played, three won, eight scored, one conceded.

  • Mjällby has a one-win-in-seven form heading into this game while also carrying a deficit from the first leg.

• CXSports says: Coming into this game, Mjällby’s carrying a one-goal deficit after losing their home leg 0-1. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they’ve only managed one win in their last seven matches, they're eleventh in their own (much gentler) league, and they now have to play at a ground where Salzburg have won every home game this season whilst also holding a spotless competitive record against Swedish opposition (three wins from three, eight goals scored, one conceded).
  
  Given that, it’s probably fairly safe to skip right to the end here and declare this one a Salzburg victory. But before we get there, let’s first give Mjallby some credit where credit is due.
  
  Let’s start with their first leg performance. While Salzburg was clearly in control (they took 24 shots to Mjällby's 10 and put eight on target to their one), Salzburg was struggling to do anything with that. In fact, they needed a 90th-minute own goal because Mjällby's keeper (Robin Wallinder) made six saves. So, that’s a positive, even if overreliance on the goalkeeper’s a strategy that eventually cracks. Mjällby has also been known to detonate given the right day. After all, they are the side that came back from three goals down at half-time to beat league leaders Sirius 4-3. So we can’t write off their attack entirely.
  
  Of course, chasing a deficit means committing players forward. However, doing that against a Salzburg side that’s only conceded a single goal at home to Swedish competition might be more of a futile pursuit than it will be a winning strategy. Particularly given the other side of Salzburg’s record here — they’ve put 8 past Swedish opponents at home across three games.
  
  So let’s leave it where we started off — Salzburg will likely win here. And they’ll likely do it with ease. Meanwhile, Mjällby will probably over-extend (and get punished for it), leaving this one to end in the deficit multiplying.

• Score prediction: 3-0 for Salzburg

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Salzburg Victory

• Odds Range: 1.13-1.27

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (No)

• Odds Range: 1.59-1.85

Make your sportsbook work for you!

That’s a wrap for today. We’ll be back later in the week as we look ahead to this weekend’s packed schedule across the Premier League, Ligue 1, and La Liga.

Until the, enjoy the football.