Dinamo Minsk vs Zenit St Petersburg Predictions, Betting Tips and Match Previews

This is something of a local derby, by European standards at least, with close ties between neighbouring Russia and Belarus. The winners of this tie between Dinamo Minsk and Zenit could potentially face Hibs in the Europa League play-off round and although the Russians are firm favourites to progress over two legs, Dinamo will believe they can be competitive in the 1st Leg at least.

They finished as runners up in the Belarusian Premier League last season and are very experienced European campaigners, competing in continental competition in almost every season since the end of the Soviet Union, when these sides used to meet in league fixtures. It has generally been this competition that they’ve competed in and they reached the group phase as recently as the 2015-16 campaign.

Zenit are also of course very much used to European action and have fond memories of the Europa League. They won it a decade ago, beating Rangers in the Final in Manchester and knocked out Celtic on the way to the last 16 last season, having also entered at the 3rd Qualifying Round stage. They are certainly a team well capable of having another long run in the tournament and should win this tie with minimal trouble.

They’ve made an excellent start to the new season. Back to back wins to nil leave them on top of the Russian Premier League at this early stage and they also performed well against European opponents in friendly matches, winning 4 of their 5 pre-season games, the exception being a 3-3 draw against Italian giants Inter. It’s 7 wins out of 8 overall for them now, including friendlies and they should have more than enough quality to win the 1st Leg here.

Those two competitive games should have got them up to match sharpness as they prepare to take on a team whose domestic league runs through the summer. Dinamo have been in pretty good form too but they’ve not had any tests anywhere near this stiff in recent months. They’ve seen off Derry City and Slovakian minnows DAC to reach this stage but they did surprisingly lose the home leg against the Irish side and they’ve only won one home game by more than a single clear goal since November 2017.

This is a real step up in class for them and against a Zenit side who made very easy progress until the knockout rounds in this competition last year, backing Zenit -1 Asian Handicap could be worth a punt.

Read our Asian Handicap Betting Guide for more on this market.