The European footballing season may not have started yet for most leagues with the on-going European Championships and Copa America taking most of the attention, but for some, their season is already set to begin with the upcoming 2024/25 UEFA Champions League qualifiers.
Clubs from across some of Europe’s minor leagues are set to compete for a coveted place in the competition’s group stage, but they must first get through three qualifying rounds and a play-off round, with the first of these taking place over the coming days.
These games set the stage for underdog stories and thrilling encounters and we’re going to take a closer look at a selection of these matches and pick out our top tips and booking code:
Slovan Bratislava vs Struga Trim Lum
Slovan Bratislava have plenty of experience of competing in European qualifiers, taking part in qualifying for one of the European competitions in all of the last 15 seasons, making it to the group stage of the Europa League and Europa Conference League in that time.
Struga Trim Lum, in comparison, have competed in just the last two seasons with a first-round exit for the Europa Conference League in 2021/22 before being knocked out of the Champions League and Europa Conference League qualifiers last season.
While the visitors will be looking to make history by reaching the group stage for the first time, the hosts have much more experience and quality throughout their squad and we expect them to win this one rather comfortably.
Slovan Bratislava to win, 1.36
Ludogorets 1945 Razgrad vs Dinamo Batumi
Ludogorets have successfully made it through the qualifiers to compete in the Champions League group stage on two occasions, while they have also competed in both the Europa League and Europa Conference League group stages in recent seasons.
Dinamo Batumi, on the other hand, have never made it to the group stage of a European competition, coming closest to qualifying for the Europa Conference League when they lost in the third round of qualifying in 2021/22.
The hosts experience of competing at this level, especially in comparison to the visitors, should help them get over the line with a victory.
Ludogorets 1945 Razgrad to win, 1.17
FC Dinamo Minsk vs Pyunik Yerevan
Both teams have previously taken part in qualifying rounds for European competitions on a multitude of occasions, and they come into this one fairly evenly matched.
However, while the hosts are already midway through their domestic league campaign, the visitors have not played a competitive match for nearly two months. For this reason, we expect the hosts to be much more match fit and to take a narrow victory here.
FC Dinamo Minsk to win, 2.58
Borac Banja Luka vs Egnatia Rrogozhine
The hosts have suffered aggregate defeats in all of their last five qualification attempts for European competitions, while the visitors have played just twice in Europe when they competed in the first qualification round for the Europa Conference League last season, losing on aggregate.
With neither side having much experience of competing and winning at this level, both of them will want to ensure they are still in with a chance of going through to the second round when they face off in the second leg of this fixture. For this reason, we expect the first leg to be an extremely cagey affair and to ultimately end in a draw.
Borac Banja Luka & Egnatia Rrogozhine to draw, 3.75
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