TFT Issue 241!
FreeHowdy guys and girls!
Featured game
Jablonec vs Teplice – home win with -1 Asian Handicap at evens.
Today’s featured game is the Gambrinus Liga game between Jablonec and Teplice.
Jablonec are generally considered to be the side that accepts third place in the Gambrinus Liga on an annual basis and are quite happy with that and maybe that’s true. However, they must be eyeing up the top of the table with interest at the moment as Sparta Prague keep inexplicably getting annihlated at home by sides that they’re better than and Viktoria Plzen have a UEFA Champions League campaign to distract them so it could well be the year that Jablonec excel themselves.
I mean, Lafata is the most in-form striker in the division at the moment, having bagged fourteen goals in eleven games. He’s too good to be playing at this level nowadays, really, but some players prefer to go back to their home country earlier than others, I suppose. Promising youngsters Kovarik and Kopic in midfield have helped out but it’s Lafata that is the leading light of the team. Defensively, Jablonec aren’t great – they’re just not interested in that aspect of their game nowadays. In attack, though, they do excel, especially at home. They’ve already won five out of six on their own turf this season, beating the -1.5 handicap in all of those wins and scoring a tremendous amount of goals along the way. Jablonec are a very strong home side, to be blunt, and I doubt that will change today.
Visitors Teplice continue to be overrated by the bookies and I don’t know why. They used to be a good side, yes, but they parted with almost all of their good players pre-season and the season before that etc. because of big financial problems, problems that are still there now. They’ve not won in four games now, losing three of them, and they’ve conceded in all four games, which doesn’t bode well for the tough trip to take on Jablonec. Mahmutovic’s return last match gives them a small ray of hope as he’s pretty much the only one who looks like scoring with Keric seemingly having put his feet up for the season and only Vachousek can make things happen in midfield but they just pale in comparison to their hosts.
Jablonec don’t have a good record against Teplice, which is quite intriguing. I don’t like how the old “voodoo sign” can affect some games and maybe that has had an impact on the odds for today. Either way, Jablonec not winning this game would be a surprise to me as Teplice really aren’t the side that they were when they were able to take points off Jablonec. For me, Jablonec beating the -1 Asian Handicap at evens looks a steal today.
Verdict: Jablonec to beat the -1 Asian Handicap at evens.
Team news
Norwegian Eliteserien:
Valerenga Oslo – Kone is absent. Hagen returns.
Fredrikstad – Valencia, Myrie, Mulac, and Staw are absent. Masalin and Thomassen are doubts.