Espanyol vs Ferencvarosi TC Predictions

After a 12 season absence, Espanyol return to the Europa League Group Stage this Thursday evening and they are strongly fancied to dispatch Hungarian champions Ferencvarosi TC at RCDE Stadium.

David Gallego’s side sailed through the qualifying rounds and they have been given a kind draw in Group H alongside CSKA Moscow, Ludogorets Razgrad and their opponents this Thursday. Espanyol are expected to progress with relative ease alongside Russian outfit CSKA, however they need to collect maximum points from this fixture to remove pressure from the tougher games that lie ahead.

Espanyol’s last major foray in Europe came in the 2006/07 UEFA Cup, where they were agonisingly beaten on penalties by Spanish compatriots Sevilla. Whilst they have been away from the competition for some time, Periquitos have a sound record in it throughout their history, having also reached the final in 1987/88. Overall, they boast a 56% win ratio in the tournament proper, after victories in 33 of their 56 matches played.

Last season’s 7^th place finish in La Liga was a superb achievement for the Barcelona based club and whilst they have had to deal with a change in manager over the summer following Rubi’s exit to Real Betis, they will be giving it their absolute all in this competition and are a team to watch out for.

Ferencvarosi TC are a team extremely well known to those of a certain age and were a pretty major force in Europe back in the day. The 30-time Hungarian champs beat Juventus to lift the old Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1964/65, whilst they also finished as runners-up in the competition three seasons later, losing to Leeds United. In 1974/75 they nearly tasted European glory again, but lost out to Dynamo Kiev in the Cup Winners Cup Final.

Recent years have not been so fruitful for ‘Zold Sasok’ though on the European stage. Prior to this season, they have failed to qualify for the main draw of a European competition in eight attempts – a run stretching back to the 2004/05 UEFA Cup where they finished bottom of their group.

The Hungarians look booked for a similar showing this time around, based on the lack of strength in their domestic league and a 5-1 aggregate hammering suffered at the hands of Dinamo Zagreb in Champions League Qualifying, which meant they dropped down into this competition. That result exposes the limitations of this Ferencvarosi side, as does the 4-1 battering which they were dealt by Puskas Akademia in domestic action at the end of August.

All in all, Espanyol should be far too strong for the visitors on Thursday evening and they will be buoyant following their 1-2 comeback success against Eibar at the weekend, which settled plenty of nerves after picking up just one point from their opening three La Liga matches.

Periquitos’ showings in La Liga could well be attributed to their early start in this tournament, which has to date been anything but a struggle. Espanyol readily dispatched Stjarnan (7-1), Luzern (6-0) and Zorya (5-3) in the qualifying rounds, so we can expect them to be on point here.

The visitors’ defence looks vulnerable based on those aforementioned defeats to Dinamo Zagreb and Puskas Akademia, whilst they also conceded twice against FK Suduva in the last qualifying round.

With the gulf in class between the teams seemingly large, backing Espanyol minus a one goal handicap rates as a great wager here at a touch of odds-against and we’re also predicting a 4-1 scoreline in favour of the hosts. Ferencvarosi are expected to bag a consolation goal as they have scored in five of their last six games, whilst Espanyol have conceded in five of their last six outings in all competitions.