UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv vs. Fenerbahce Preview, Odds, Prediction

The UEFA Champions League qualifiers are in focus right now, and our pick for this week is a game between Dynamo Kyiv and Fenerbahce. The two sides meet in Lublin, Poland, due to the entire situation with the war in Ukraine. Dynamo can’t play its home games at the stadium in Kyiv, so they await the rivals here. Both sides didn’t have any competitive contests this season, so we might say that their overall quality and shape are enigmas for many. The stakes are high and the circumstances are a bit odd, which makes this clash interesting.

Preview

Dynamo Kyiv (+200) is in a pretty tough situation, with some of the players out, and the fact that they can’t play at home. In today’s football, that is often a big handicap, especially for the Ukrainian unit, whose successes were usually coming in Kyiv.

They didn’t have a competitive match since February, which is an additional problem for the head coach Lucescu, but he kept the boys in shape with frequent club-friendly meetings against various European sides.

They recently played several, six of them since the start of July. The latest was against Antwerp, and the Belgian unit ended up on the winning side in this one, 2-1. Dynamo was better than Lyon, Luzern, Sion, young Boys, etc, and overall, they played solid football during the pre-season.

Fenerbache (+130) was almost perfect throughout the pre-season period. Apart from a draw in the first friendly meeting, they had five straight victories. And just to add, that the rivals weren’t easy at all, Partizan, MOL, Hull, etc. So some pretty respectable names couldn’t compete with the Turks, who cruised past them easily.

What we saw in those games is that Fener’s attack is awesome. In each but one of those games, the Turkish powerhouse scored two or more goals. Meanwhile, the defense has been rock-solid, keeping clean sheets in four of the latest five events.

There were some major signings during the transfer window. Joshua King, Bruma, and Diego Rossi, all of them landed in Istanbul this summer. Fener was agile, and it appears that the most popular Turkish team wants to attack not only the UCL spot but the title as well.

Latest News

For the moment, there isn’t any news about the absence of important players on both sides. If there are some, we will display them here until the kick-off.

Head to Head Games

Fener and Dynamo played a friendly game last season, and the result of that one was 1-1. They met four times in UCL, in 2009 when Dynamo won 1-0 at home, the second game in Istanbul saw no goals, and the playoffs in 2006. The result in Istanbul was 2-2 and Kyiv 3-1.

Prediction

We stated that Dynamo isn’t playing at home, which is a handicap. That’s why we go with both teams scoring here. The respective defenses aren’t performing well, while the attacks are in solid condition. So the logical conclusion is for both teams to net. The odds are at -166, and for us, this is a good offer.

Pick: Both teams to score -166