Good Morning ☀️,

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

Today, we’ve got a massive batch of matches as we look ahead to tomorrow’s upcoming Europa action. So let’s get straight into it.

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

• This week’s full Europa League and Conference League schedule. 🗓️

• Our top three picks from this week’s Europa games. ✅

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Tomorrow we’ve got a huge series of matches coming up as both the Europa League and Europa Conference League drop an entire round of fixtures on a single day. (Note: all dates and times are in CEST)

🇪🇺 Europa League

Thursday 22 October

• 18:45 — Ararat Armenia vs AZ Alkmaar

• 18:45 — Dinamo Zagreb vs NEC Nijmegen

• 18:45 — Ferencvarosi TC vs Uniao Torreense

• 18:45 — Juventus vs Rennes

• 18:45 — Lech Poznan vs Sunderland

• 18:45 — OFI Crete vs Bayer Leverkusen

• 18:45 — Royal Union Saint-Gilloise vs Hapoel Beer Sheva

• 18:45 — Sturm Graz vs Marseille

• 18:45 — AC Omonia vs Benfica

• 18:45 — Besiktas vs Crystal Palace

• 18:45 — Bournemouth vs AC Milan

• 18:45 — Celtic vs Celta Vigo

• 18:45 — Hoffenheim vs Lyon

• 18:45 — Jagiellonia Bialystok vs Anderlecht

• 18:45 — Lillestrom vs Real Sociedad

• 18:45 — NK Celje vs Red Bull Salzburg

• 18:45 — Olympiacos vs Sparta Prague

• 18:45 — Viktoria Plzen vs Levski

🇪🇺 Europa Conference League

Thursday 22 October

• 16:30 — Kairat vs Panathinaikos

• 18:45 — Baumit Jablonec vs Brighton

• 18:45 — FC Nordsjaelland vs CSKA

• 18:45 — Getafe vs Lugano

• 18:45 — Inter Club d’Escaldes vs CS Universitatea Craiova

• 18:45 — Kauno Zalgiris vs Brann

• 18:45 — Pafos vs Riga FC

• 18:45 — Red Star Belgrade vs Copenhagen

• 18:45 — Iberia 1999 vs Mjallby

• 18:45 — Trabzonspor vs Hearts

• 18:45 — AGF Aarhus vs FK Egnatia

• 18:45 — Ajax vs Atalanta

• 18:45 — Monaco vs Freiburg

• 18:45 — Braga vs Gent

• 18:45 — FC Midtjylland vs Sint Truiden

• 18:45 — FC Thun vs HNK Hadjuk Split

• 18:45 — FK Borac Banja Luka vs Kuopio PS

• 18:45 — Lincoln Red Imps vs Twente

Want to get the best odds on these matches?

⚽ OFI Crete vs Bayer Leverkusen
🏟️ Europa League
📅 Thursday 22 October; 18:45 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Leverkusen has won both its Europa games with an aggregate of 6-0, leaving them with a goal difference only matched by Juventus.

  • Leverkusen’s currently #10 in the UEFA club coefficient rankings with 95.0 points; OFI’s #177 with 9.162 points.

  • OFI lost its last three games (across all competitions) in a row while conceding nine goals and only scoring 4.

• CXSports says: At the moment, Leverkusen’s scoring at twice the competition average while conceding nothing — they’ve won the two games they’ve played thus far with an aggregate of 6-0, leaving them with a goal average of 3.0 per game against a Europa League average of 1.4 goals a game. And now, they’ll be facing OFI, a side that’s leaked nine goals in its last three matches across all competitions (while only scoring 4), with that sample including two Greek league matches where the level of competition is noticeably lower than what they’ll face here.
  
  And since we’re on the topic of domestic leagues, OFI’s broader league numbers more or less describe an average Greek team — 1.57 scored a game, and 1.57 conceded per game against a league norm of 1.34. In other words, they’re a a mid-table side in a league that UEFA ranks as 12th in Europe. Meanwhile, Leverkusen’s domestic numbers have them scoring at 2.67 per game against an average of 1.84. And that comes in a league ranked 4th (Bundesliga), which is a big step up from the Greek league.
  
  And if all of that wasn’t bad enough for OFI, they’ll also be playing this match without two key players. The first of which is their first-choice goalkeeper. The second of which is a key striker who’s behind three of their goals in European games this season.
  
  Of course, OFI does hold the home advantage, so that might play some role in tipping the scales back in their favor. At least, in theory it might. Unfortunately, in practice, we’re not convinced it makes much of a difference. While OFI is unbeaten in six home games this season and has won a total of nine of its 11 European home games, just take a look at who was visiting Crete — a Bulgarian qualifier, the bottom half of the Greek league, and a Hoffenheim side that sits 14th in the Bundesliga and has lost both its league-phase games. (For comparison, Leverkusen’s UEFA rating is almost six times Hoffenheim’s.) In fact, the toughest visitor who visited OFI was AEK (who’s also much lower-ranked than Leverkusen), and they only managed a 2-2 in regular time during a one-off Super Cup before OFI won on penalties.
  
  So where does that leave us? Well, Leverkusen clearly wins this. And they probably do so with a decent margin and a half decent chance of a clean sheet, although we wouldn’t be surprised if OFI does manage to sneak one through.

• Score prediction: 1-3 for Bayer Leverkusen

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Bayer Leverkusen Victory

• Odds Range: 1.15-1.25

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Over/Under (Over 2.5)

• Odds Range: 1.22-1.38

⚽ Baumit Jablonec vs Brighton
🏟️ Europa Conference League
📅 Thursday 22 October; 18:45 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Brighton have an +18 goal difference after seven league games (23 scored, 5 conceded), while Jablonec are on +2 after eleven in a league UEFA ranks 11th in Europe (vs the EPL’s #1 ranking).

  • Brighton are on a six-game winning run which includes 3-0 against last season’s champions, and 5-0 over Crystal Palace last Sunday.

  • Jablonec’s defence has thoroughly been broken twice in the past week. Freiburg scored three on 15 October. Viktoria Plzen scored three on 18 October.

• CXSports says: One of these teams is the best in its league at scoring goals and not conceding any. And the other is a rather ordinary mid-table contender in a significantly weaker league. And yes, the former is Brighton in the EPL (who’s currently scoring 3.3 goals a game while conceding just 0.7), and the latter is Jablonec, who’s currently scoring 1.3 while and concede 1.1 a game. And just in case we weren’t clear about the difference between the leagues from which these two hail, UEFA’s ranking puts England 1st and Czechia 11th, which means Brighton’s league numbers are worth more than their raw difference with Jablonec’s numbers alone would imply.
  
  And while the sample is smaller, each side’s current Europa performance largely agrees with their league stats. Brighton are 8-0 across three games, while Jablonec’s 11-8 across seven. Of course, Brighton’s schedule was arguably a little easier — Norwegian and Lithuanian opposition aren’t exactly known for being brutal. Meanwhile, Jablonec’s last two games against Rangers and Freiburg (which ended 3-3 on aggregate) were arguably tougher. But when Jablonec’s defence is consistently leaking at almost the same rate as its offense is scoring while Brighton’s is consistently delivering them a massively positive goal difference, the difference is hard to ignore. Particularly when that difference aligns with its numbers posted in Europe’s toughest league.
  
  So where does that leave us? Well, given the sheer difference between these two, we don’t expect much from Jablonec here, even if they have won all three of their home European games this season without conceding. After all, those games were against Croatian, Latvian and Scottish sides. So expect this to end cleanly in Brighton’s favor. Probably by multiple goals.

• Score prediction: 0-3 for Brighton

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Brighton Victory

• Odds Range: 1.20-1.32

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Over/Under (Over 2.5)

• Odds Range: 1.30-1.54

⚽ Lincoln Red Imps vs Twente
🏟️ Europa Conference League
📅 Thursday 22 October; 21:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Twente are +9 (14 scored, 5 conceded) in the Europa Conference League this season while Lincoln are level (4 scored, 4 conceded).

  • In last season’s league phase, Lincoln leaked goals in all six of its games at a rate of 2.5 per game.

  • Lincoln domestic numbers won’t transfer here — while they don’t concede much domestically, Gibraltar’s ranked 49th in UEFA’s rankings. Meanwhile, Twente also concedes lower than its domestic league average, but does so in a league ranked 8th by UEFA.

• CXSports says: In its five Conference League games this season, Twente has consistently outscored its opponents 14-5, leaving them with a nice little +9 goal difference. Meanwhile, Lincoln’s only managed to break even at 4-4 after its three games. And while Twente’s massive number does include a 6-0 anomaly against DAC, if we take those six goals out of the equation, they’re still +3, which is still better. To put that into a more directly comparable context, Twente’s adjusted +3 after 4 games leaves them with an average goal difference of +0.75 goals per game compared with Linoln’s zero.
  
  Of course, while its Europa numbers might not stack up, it might be tempting to look at Lincoln’s domestic record as evidence of how they fare over a larger sample of games. Unfortunately, however, their 11-2 aggregate in five league games was built up against competition in a league ranked 49th in Europe. Meanwhile Twente’s slightly more modest 17-10 from 9 league games came while playing against 8th-ranked European competition. So don’t expect Lincoln’s decent domestic performance to count for much here.
  
  Indeed, over the longer run, Lincoln demonstrably struggles at the European level. Particularly in defense. Last season in this competition, they conceded a full 15 goals at 2.5 a game, and this season they have let in 4 in 3. And while Twente aren’t exactly great in defense when they’re playing on the road (they’ve conceded 6 goals in three European away games), they at least make up for it in their offense.
  
  As such, we’re backing Twente to win this one. Not that we expect this one to end cleanly — Twente do concede on the road, after all. But given the differences here at the European level, and the relative strength of each sides’ domestic numbers, we’re reasonably confident that Lincoln doesn’t stand much of a chance here.

• Score prediction: 1-2 for Twente

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Twente Victory

• Odds Range: 1.13-1.25

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (Yes)

• Odds Range: 1.73-2.05

Make your sportsbook work for you!

That’s a wrap for today. But we’ll be back later in the week as we look ahead to all the upcoming league action for this weekend.

Until then, enjoy the football.