Today's clubgowi subscriber newsletter contained six previews of football games taking place across four leagues and three continents, you can read one of them below and it is meant as a sample of what the service provides on a daily basis. The result means nothing, it is simply posted to allow you an insight into what a standard preview looks like and most weeks subrscibers receive 30-40 such previews. Having said that, all the content you read for free on the clubgowi website and prior to that on the GOWI blog, has made a profit every year since 2006 and that is across many thousands of bets!
UEFA Champions League :Celtic- Slovan Bratislava
New format ........
36 clubs will participate in the Champions League league phase (former group stage), giving four more sides the opportunity to compete against the best clubs in Europe. Those 36 clubs will participate in a single league competition in which all 36 are ranked together.
Under the new format, teams will play eight matches in the new league phase (former group stage). They will no longer play three opponents twice – home and away – but will instead face fixtures against eight different teams, playing half of those matches at home and half of them away. To determine the eight different opponents, the teams will initially be ranked in four seeding pots. Each team will then be drawn to play two opponents from each of these pots, playing one match against a team from each pot at home, and one away.
The top eight sides in the league will qualify automatically for the round of 16, while the teams finishing in 9th to 24th place will compete in a two-legged knock-out phase play-off to secure their path to the last 16 of the competition. Teams that finish 25th or lower will be eliminated, with no access to the UEFA Europa League.
The new format, with all the teams ranked together in a single league, will mean that there is more to play for all the way through to the final night of the league phase.
In the knockout phase, the teams that finish between 9th and 16th will be seeded in the knockout phase play-off draw, meaning they will face a team placed 17th to 24th – with, in principle, the return leg at home. The eight clubs which prevail in the knockout phase play-offs will then progress to the round of 16, where they will each face one of the top-eight finishers, who will be seeded in the round of 16.
To strengthen the synergy between the league and knockout phases, and to provide more sporting incentive during the league phase, the pairings of the knockout phase will also be partly determined by the league phase rankings, with a draw which likewise determines and lays out the route for teams to reach the final.
From the round of 16 onwards, the competition will continue to follow its existing format of knockout rounds leading to the final staged at a neutral venue selected by UEFA.
A major change is that the two extra rounds mean that league stage games will continue until January 29th instead of the group stage traditionally finishing in early/mid December and for half the teams making the final 16 (those playing in the knockout phase playoffs) it will mean 10 games total to do so and three played between January 29 and February 19. All three of those will be super competitive ties and played at what will be a pivotal stage of domestic football and the bigger clubs will hope to avoid that and should dictate how they approach games later in the league phase.
Slovan Bratislava have featured quite regularly in my European notes in recent seasons and back in February I wrote ..........
Slovan Bratislava are the best team in Slovakia by a country mile and will be winning the title for a 6th straight season, they currently sit top with a 10 point advantage, scoring 2.58 goals per game, 2.6 on the road and they have played their part in some wide open games we have previewed in the last 18 months or so. Ahead of a trip to Basel last March I wrote...........
Now Slovan are back in the city for the second time this season having won 2-0 here in the group stage and the teams then sharing six goals in the return in Bratislava two weeks later. Slovan have scored in 13/14 away starts, the only game they came up short in was a few days after the trip to Basel, when they opted to rotate very heavily and rest eight players . The visitors will be very motivated and the competition is big for them, but Basel have got better and Slovan rarely keep a clean sheet, just one in ten away starts since that win in Switzerland in October, conceding 16 goals total and also conceding in 6/7 competition road starts.
They restarted after the Winter Break on Friday and could hardly have been more impressive, winning 4-0 away to their closest rival for the title. They have played 14 European games this season, six in the Champions League, two in Europa and six in this competition and scored in all 14 which is very solid, toughest was arguably away to Lille where they lost 2-1 but led for 40 minutes and held their own until the final 10 minutes when they were reduced to 10 men. They are battled hardened and full of goals.
Then, ahead of their CL playoff game with Midtjylland in August, I updated with .....
They won their league by 15 points and are top again with a 100% record through four rounds. They have already battled through two rounds in the CL, so this will be game #6 after a 1-1 draw in Jutland and they have scored 13 goals, conceding five with just a single clean sheet. They are very offensive minded and do not appear to fear anyone, traits which come along with being so dominant offensively. This is a big step forward for them, only the second time they have played the CL play off round and the first was ten years ago, when they lost to a strong BATE side.
They (obviously) prevailed and are in their debut group stage/league phase of the Champions League and that is a huge deal for them. It is a big step up, but has been coming and they are very experienced in Europe now, in 23/24 alone they played 16 games across all three competitions and scored in 15 of those and they are another team who do not fear anyone which comes with the territory of dominating football domestically and "expecting to win" each time they take to the field , a bit like Celtic. That can catch teams out when the level of opposition takes a quantum leap forward as it usually does when SPL or Slovakian Superliga becomes CL for example, but for today, I expect both teams to take a very confident approach to this game and for it to be closer than the odds might suggest.
Celtic are vastly experienced in CL play, but perhaps less than we might think, as they have played group stage football 5 times in the last decade and if forced to guess, I would have said more. They have finished 4th in the section four times and 3rd once and in their last 18 competition home games they have conceded in 15, keeping clean sheets only against teams from Armenia, Estonia and Iceland and whilst some might only put Slovakian football a little ahead of those, it is quite superior and Slovan on another level entirely to those clubs.
2.5 units both teams to score @ 2.11 asian line.
0.5 units Slovan Bratislava -0.5 ball @ 12.19 asian line.
Good luck!
