Sparta Prague vs APOEL Nicosia Betting Tips

Both sides are currently topping their respective national leagues. Sparta, who were only narrowly beaten 5-4 on aggregate in Champions League qualifying by CSKA Moscow, were unbeaten in the Czech Republic until the weekend. A derby defeat to Slavia Prague will have come as a setback but they’ll be hopeful of bouncing back with a win here at the Generali Arena where they are typically very strong.

They’ve won their last 4 home matches, scoring twice or more on each occasion. This is perhaps their most winnable game in the group and having only drawn on the opening day against Asteras Tripolis of Greece, they’ll be approaching this with only 3 points on their minds.

APOEL could really do with a win too having gone down heavily 3-0 at home to Schalke in the opening game. The Germans are likely to boss this group but the other teams will certainly feel 2nd place is wide open. The Cypriot Champions have scored 19 goals in their last 6 matches but clearly can be exposed defensively by the better sides and they’ve not been keeping many clean sheets even in Cyprus so far this season.

Goals then seem likely and there is value in backing there to be over 2.5 goals in this game at Evens. Sparta are fairly strong favourites to win and have the look of a side which is finally getting back towards being at least a minor force in this competition if not the Champions League in the years to come.

They have been pretty unlucky not to make that competition in the past couple of seasons after narrow qualifying defeats otherwise more people would be familiar with them. With home advantage, they should have too much class for APOEL although we can see the visitors scoring at some point in the game.

Sparta are likely to be positive throughout though and the goals should come as they have done for them in Europe against better teams than APOEL. Therefore consider backing this to finish 3-1 to the Czechs at 12/1.