UEFA Champions League: Olympiacos vs. Maccabi Haifa Preview, Odds, Prediction

Things will be very fiery at Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium in Athens on Wednesday night when Olympiacos meets Maccabi Haifa. This is the second leg of their UEFA Champions League matchup, and the result in the first meeting was 1-1. So, both teams are tied, and the pressure on either is pretty high. The atmosphere in Athens is always on the verge of an incident, which is something that only spices up the entire situation.

Preview

Olympiacos (-125) didn’t play well in the preseason games, and to be honest, they haven’t made some positive impression on us in the first game played in Israel. Apart from scoring early on, Oly didn’t show anything, and we can say that if the game hadn’t opened in such a manner, we can hardly believe that the Greeks would stay unbeaten.

Throughout nine games played since the start of the campaign, Olympiacos had only two wins, with three defeats and draws each. The Greeks have kept clean sheets only twice, while on the other side, scored two or more goals only once.

We need to say that the rivals weren’t some top European teams. Against Slavia Prague, Oly played 1-1, after that lost to RB Salzburg 3-1, and won vs. AZ, 1-0. But others were mediocre opponents.

Maccabi Haifa (+400) opened the first leg poorly, allowing a goal in the seventh minute, and after that, chased the result until the second minute of the extra times. Haziza leveled the score, keeping some hope for the Israeli team and boosting the morale as well.

This was Haifa’s first game this season in which they haven’t lost. After losing to Mechelen and Vitesse in club-friendly games, both with 1-0, they were defeated in the Israeli Super Cup, by Hapoel Beer Sheva, 1-2 following the penalties.

As you can see, this team is extremely defensive-minded, and their primary option is to protect its goal first and only attack later. Though, we need to stress that Maccabi has had massive problems with efficiency lately. They have pretty big issues regarding strikers, and if something isn’t done quickly, the European adventure for this crew will quickly end.

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Nikola Cumic is the only notable player from Oly who won’t play, but the 23-year-old winger is out for a long time.

Raz Meir and Ben Sahar are two players who are out for Maccabi, but they two are long gone due to injuries.

Head to Head Games

Some 20 years ago, these teams met in the UEFA Champions League group stage. Maccabi was better at home in Haifa, 3-0, while the second game in Greece saw a firework, 3-3.

As said, the opening leg of this pair of encounters ended 1-1.

Prediction

This will be a very tight affair, with just a few goals. Maccabi is going to defend, that is for sure, while on the other side, we saw that Oly isn’t pretty convincing upfront. Due to all that, the most logical thing is to bet on under 2.5 scores. Odds on that are -300, and they are maybe low, but the risk is low as well.

Pick: Under 2.5 goals -300