Live on ESPN & Five: Thu 20.05: In the Europa League semis, Atletico Madrid and Sporting can both win their home legs, 23/5 with BetVictor.
Since dropping into the Europa League, Valencia have always been fancied as one of the favourites (although they are now 13/5 3rd favs with Boylesports) but their away form has far from been convincing in the competition and, coupled with a 4-0 thrashing at Espanyol, they head to Atletico Madrid as bet365’s 11/4 outsiders.
Atletico are on a fine home run in the Europa League and have won all 8 games at Vicente Calderón and Betfred make them 11/10 to register another. With 4 clean sheets and the other 4 games only conceding 1 goal, Atletico are 13/5 with Paddy Power to register a victory ‘to nil’ while a narrow 1-0 victory is 7/1 at Ladbrokes. Those who think Valencia can take a vital away goal (8/11 both teams to score, bet365) should look to Blue Square’s 8/1 on a 2-1 home win and those who want bigger on the win might consider Ladbrokes’ 3/1 on a home win by just 1 goal.
In the other semi, Sporting CP are BetVictor’s 17/10 slight favourites as they welcome Bilbao, Stan James’ 15/8 outsiders.
Similarly, Sporting have won all 7 home games in the Europa League and they can do it again a decent odds. 2-1 again stands out at 9/1 (Coral) while backing Sporting in a home win double with Atletico pays 23/5 at BetVictor.
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