BATE – Qarabag Prediction & Picks (14.08.2018)

BATE and Qarabağ meet at Borisov Arena, in a return match for this phase of the UEFA Champions League (3rd Qualifying Round), after the victory outside BATE by (0-1) in the first leg. In this game the home factor may be decisive, since both teams present considerable differences in the results achieved at home and as a visitor.

BATE:

After the away win by (0-1), the home team comes to this second leg with a 1 goal advantage. This is a team that usually gets better results in away matches than at home, since in the last 30 matches they register 11 wins, 3 draws and 1 loss in away matches, with 25 goals scored and 14 conceded; against 10 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses at their stadium, with 26 goals scored and 9 conceded. In the last 10 home matches BATE has won 6, tied 3 and lost 1. Their attack has scored regularly, since they have scored goals in 8 of the last 10 matches. The team usually has no problems opening the scoring: scored the first goal in 12 of the last 15 games, of these 12 came to the break in advantage in 8 and managed to maintain the advantage until the end of the 90 ‘in 8.

BATE Borisov is a club that has never managed to win a European title, but has reached the group stage of the Champions League for five times, in addition to having conquered the Belarusian Premier League fourteen times, being the most recent title conquered in 2017. In the current season, the team has been doing a good campaign in the national competition, currently occupying the first position, with seven points of advantage and has already gone through the second preliminary phase, eliminating the Helsinki by 1×2 (in the aggregate). In the last five games that BATE Borisov played at home, in four did not suffer goals. I think that in this confrontation, as it has the advantage of having won in the first match, by 0x1, BATE Borisov will remain defending for a large part of the game and will not suffer goals, but will end up with a draw or at most a victory for the minimal difference.

Qarabağ:

After the defeat at home, the visiting team comes to this second leg with a disvalue of 1 goal and with the difficult task of recovering this negative result as a visitor. This is a team that usually gets better results in away matches than at home, since in the last 30 matches they register 7 wins, 5 draws and 3 losses in away matches, with 11 goals scored and 9 conceded; against 7 wins, 4 draws and 4 losses at their stadium, with 14 goals scored and 7 conceded. In their last 10 away matches Qarabağ has registered 5 wins, 4 draws and 1 loss. The defense has been strong and only has suffered goals in 1 of the last 5 matches for this competition.

The Karabakh Agdam is a club in Azerbaijan that has six titles of the Supreme League (Championship of the 1st Division of Azerbaijan), the last conquered in the last season, 2017/18, which gave it a place in the League Qualifying of Champions 2018/19. In addition to the titles of the Supreme League, the club has six achievements of the Azerbaijan Cup, the last one won in 2016/17. In this third qualifying round of the 2018/19 Champions League, the team lost at home by 0x1 against Bate Borisov, which complicated the tie enough, because now they need at least to win by 0x1 at the home of Bate Borisov. When analyzing the participation of Karabakh in the other seasons of the Champions League, we see that it is a team that usually does not lose out of home, in the majority of the times, when that happens is only by a goal difference.