Good Morning ☀️,

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

With the weekend down and a new week ahead of us, we’ve got another great batch of UCL qualification games coming up. So let’s get into it.

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

• This week’s complete UCL qualifications match schedule. 🗓️

• Our top three UCL qualification picks for the week. ✅

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This week, we’ve got a great series of UCL qualification matches coming up. (Note: all dates and times are in CEST)

UEFA Champions League – Qualification Playoff Round

18 Aug Tuesday

• 21:00 — Dinamo Zagreb vs Viking

• 21:00 — Fenerbahce vs Lyon

• 21:00 — Levski vs AEK Athens

19 Aug Wednesday

• 21:00 — Celtic vs LASK Linz

• 21:00 — Hapoel Beer Sheva vs Sabah Baku

• 21:00 — NEC Nijmegen vs Bodo/Glimt

• 21:00 — Slovan Bratislava vs NK Celje

Want to get the best odds on these matches?

⚽ Dinamo Zagreb vs Viking
🏟️ UEFA Champions League Qualifications
📅 Tuesday 18 August; 21:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Dinamo haven’t lost in 24 matches — their last defeat was back in February 2026, against Genk in the Europa League.

  • Dinamo’s qualifying numbers are brutal at both ends: 2.58 scored and 1.00 conceded per game across this CL run.

  • Viking are Champions League qualifying debutants — this is their first-ever appearance at this level.

• CXSports says: This is a game between two teams with very different stories. So let’s start with Dinamo Zagreb’s story. They’re the reigning Croatian champions — their 26th title — and they have not tasted defeat in twenty-four consecutive matches across all competitions (their most recent loss was all the way back in February, against Belgium’s Genk). In other words, they’ve gone six months without a loss. And they enter this play-off battle-hardened after having already ground through two rounds of Champions League qualifying: past Swiss side Thun on a 4-3 aggregate, then a 7-1 evisceration of Lithuania’s Kauno Zalgiris, with a scoring rate across that qualifying run of 2.58 goals a game while conceding just 1.00.
  
  Viking, on the other hand, presents as decent at first. They did, after all, break Bodo/Glimt’s grip on Norwegian football to win the 2025 Eliteserien. And through the first half of the domestic campaign they posted the best attack and best defence in their league (29 goals scored, only 10 conceded with 27 points from ten games). And on the raw UEFA coefficient table Norway (14th) actually outranks Croatia (20th). But what really matters here is experience at this exact level. And it reads badly for the visitors — this is Viking’s first-ever UCL qualifying campaign, and they walk into it having played zero competitive European football this summer. So entering cold with no real experience at the level, (and doing so straight off a defeat at Rosenborg) is going to be a tough ask. Their matches also tend toward chaos (65% see both teams score and come out at an average of 3.35 goals a game) which is a dangerous trait to have against a side as clinical as Dinamo. An open game is precisely what a 2.58-per-match attack wants to see.
  
  As such, the general direction we expect to see this one go in is for the sharper, more experienced Dinamo (who’s now unbeaten for half a year) to get the upper hand over a set of opponents who, while talented, are debuting at this stage and prone to conceding in games that open up.

• Score prediction: 3-1 for Dinamo Zagreb

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Dinamo Zagreb Victory

• Odds Range: 1.56-1.83

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (Yes)

• Odds Range: 1.46-1.67

⚽ Celtic vs LASK Linz
🏟️ UEFA Champions League Qualifications
📅 Wednesday 19 August; 21:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • There’s a UEFA coefficient gap of roughly 2-to-1 between these two here (Celtic ~44 vs LASK ~21.000).

  • In recent games, Celtic is averaging 3.33 goals scored per game while LASK is only managing 1.00 per game.

  • The last time these two met, Celtic won 5-2 despite playing on the road.

• CXSports says: There’s a couple of points in this fixture which more or less give the probable direction away. First, Celtic has a UEFA club coefficient of around 44, which is a little more than double LASK’s ~21. And second, Celtic has spent the better half a decade in the Champions League and Europa League while LASK, despite being a well-drilled Austrian side, only won its spot in these qualifications by way of a nervy two point triumph over Sturm Graz — a triumph that was called a fairytale. And, while fairytales are nice, they’re not usually the sort of thing that holds up that well against a stronger club that’s currently averaging 3.33 goals a game.
  
  And that number — 3.33 goals scored per game — is the sort of thing that ought to worry Linz here. In three competitive games this season, Celtic’s scored ten. What’s more, they did it while conceding none. Against that, LASK arrives with the opposite problem: while they can’t be broken down easily (two clean sheets in three and just one goal conceded), they can’t seem to properly break anyone else down either. In total, they’ve managed just three goals in three games.
  
  The head-to-head also fails to make much of a case for LASK — the last time these two met (admitedly, all the way back in 2014), Celtic took that game 5-2.
  
  As such, the most likely way this one plays out is for Celtic to score prolifically against LASK while LASK struggles to respond. With that said, LASK’s defensive discipline means this probably won’t end in a five-goal bloodbath. However, Celtic’s attacking depth against LASK’s near total lack of such depth suggests this match will likely be very one-sided.

• Score prediction: 3-0 for Celtic

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Celtic Victory

• Odds Range: 1.43-1.70

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Over/Under (Over 2.5)

• Odds Range: 1.56-1.80

⚽ Slovan Bratislava vs NK Celje
🏟️ UEFA Champions League Qualifications
📅 Wednesday 19 August; 21:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Slovan thrashed Celje 6-1 on aggregate in this exact round two years ago.

  • Slovan hasn’t conceded a goal in any of their four domestic matches this season, and kept a clean sheet at home to Mjallby in qualifying.

  • There’s a decent club-coefficient gap of 36.0 to 23.0 which favors Slovan by roughly 50%.

• CXSports says: To cut straight to the chase, Slovan Bratislava are the better club here by every measure. And they’re playing this first leg at home, where they haven’t conceded a league goal all season. And let’s not forget that the last time these two clubs met, they put five unanswered goals past Celje. And that 5-0 (part of a 6-1 aggregate) isn’t ancient history either — it’s the same fixture at the same ground from just two years ago, with both squads still built more or less the same. We also can’t ignore the coefficient gap — 36 to 23 means Slovan’s roughly 50% more accomplished in Europe over five years.
  
  With that said, both teams come from leagues of more or less equal strength. And this gives Celje an attacking pedigree that’s hard to ignore — the Slovenian league ran at 3.09 goals a game last season, making it more open than Slovakia’s. And Celje are more than capable of the ludicrous, as their 5-5 aggregate shootout survival against Egnatia shows. So they can score. The only problem is, they can’t stop others scoring (as their 5-5 aggregate shootout survival against Egnatia shows…)
  
  And that’s probably the line that decides this one. Celje conceded in bunches all summer (five to Egnatia, two more in Armenia). And now they walk into a hostile stadium where the home side hasn’t been breached since the season began. And they’ve got to do that off the back of the Egnatia scrap. As such, we see this ending in a reasonably clear victory for the home side here, with Celje doing just enough to make make themselves known without ever being truly competitive. Unless, of course, if Celje’s defending is as loose as the Ararat first leg. If that happens, don’t be surprised if the margin in this one blows right out.

• Score prediction: 3-1 for Slovan Bratislava

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Slovan Bratislava Victory

• Odds Range: 1.56-1.77

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Over/Under (Over 2.5)

• Odds Range: 1.60-1.84

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 the Europa League and Europa Conference League qualification games coming up.

Until then, enjoy the football.