APOEL vs Schalke Betting Tips

APOEL’s 2-1 aggregate loss to Astana in the Champions Leaugue playoff round condemned them to the Europa League after competing with the world’s best in the Champions League group stages last season.

They did lose five of their six games in that competition, but a 1-1 draw with Ajax, a 1-0 loss to Barcelona, and two 1-0 losses to Paris Saint Germain can’t be considered bad results for a team of APOEL’s stature.

These difficult fixtures will have taught the Cypriots a lot, and they will be looking to take these lessons into the Europa League with an aim of making it out of a fairly tough group.

Schalke are the best team in the group, but their 6^th place finish in the Bundesliga last season has seen them drop to the Europa League after three years in the Champions League.

They managed to make it out of the group in each of these Champions League campaigns as well, and have only been stopped by Real Madrid in the past two seasons.

The Germans come into this game in a bit of patchy form. They won their Bundesliga match on Saturday 2-1 against Mainz, but before that had lost 3-0 to Wolfsburg, drawn at home to Darmstadt, and won away to Werder Bremen.

This puts them in 5^th position in the Bundesliga, but they will be hoping to put a good run together in their pursuit of a return to the Champions League next season.

APOEL are unbeaten in four matches coming into this home match, but their 2-2 draw at AEK Larnaca on Saturday saw them go behind twice, and they were lucky to come away with a point.

Schalke are definitely the better team in terms of quality, and they have impressed in continental competition in recent years. I expect them to kick off their Europa League campaign with a win on Thursday, and odds of 8/11 for this outcome look good value to me.