Maccabi Tel-Aviv v Zenit St. Petersburg Betting Tips

Group D is rather weak and Zenit will fancy their chances of topping the group, however, second place is up for grabs – most likely between Maccabi Tel-Aviv and AZ Alkmaar rather than part-time Irish side Dundalk. Both of these sides will be keen to show they can do well at this level and get off to a good side.

Home side Maccabi have seemingly recruited some of the finest Israeli talents produced in recent years with the likes of Tal Ben Haim and Yossi Benayoun. They surprisingly lost the Israeli title last season but have made a decent start to their mission to regain the championship this season. They are currently unbeaten and second in the league although they will have been disappointed to concede a 95th minute equaliser against Beitar Jerusalem on Saturday.

Zenit are undoubtedly the favourites in this group and on paper they should breeze through to the knockout rounds. However, the club’s financial model heavily relies on Champions League qualification, so, to find themselves stuck in the Europa League is not ideal for Mircea Lucescu’s side. A successful European season for Zenit would see them get to at least the quarter finals of this competition and, arguably, they should even be looking at winning it.

Domestically they suffered a poor start to the season and failed to score in their first two games but their campaign was revived in mid August against Rostov. They were 2-0 down at half time against last season’s surprise title contenders but managed to come back and win 3-2. Since then they achieved a respectable 1-1 draw against championship rivals CSKA Moscow, before winning their following games 3-0 and 5-0 respectively. The 2008 UEFA Cup champions are certainly in flying form at the moment.

On paper and on current form you have to go with Zenit and, luckily for punters, they are nicely priced in this market at 21/20. Additionally I would go with Over 2.5 Goals total at 7/5. Both of these sides have good forward lines with Maccabi scoring 10 goals in their last five matches and Zenit scoring 12 in their last four games. To have a substantial profit on a simple Over 2.5 Goals bet is incredibly rare and to have it on a match with teams in good attacking form is definitely worth a go.

Giuliano de Paula moved to Zenit somewhat under the radar this summer but has got his career in the Venice of the North off to a great start with four goals in his first four matches. The former Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk man has good Europa League experience from his time in Ukraine and is in great form at the moment so I would certainly back the Brazilian to score.

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