Europa League
2015-11-26 - Schalke 04 v APOEL Nicosia
Football ; UEFA Europa League: Group K
Veltins Arena – Gelsenkirchen
Thursday, 26th November 2015 - kickoff 19:00 CET
Schalke 04
With just one more victory from the remaining two matches, Schalke 04 will seal their place in the knockout stages of the Europa League. They played really well in the group stage so far, and remained unbeaten in all of their four games played. They easily won without even conceding a single goal in their opening two games against APOEL Nicosia and Asteras Tripolis, and drew their last two matches against Sparta Prague.
Schalke 04 have played total of five times against teams from Cyprus, and never lost a match against them. They won three and drew twice, but interestingly both of their draws came at their home ground.
Schalke 04 scored ten goals in their previous four Europa League matches this season, so they are amongst the top attacking sides in the competition. Franco di Santo and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar have scored seven of Schalke 04`s total of ten goals scored so far.
Matija Nastasic, Atsuto Uchida and Marco Hoger are all out for Schalke 04 through injuries.
APOEL Nicosia
APOEL Nicosia are almost eliminated from this competition, and even if they win their last two group games they would still depend on other results to go through. That is really unlikely to happen.
APOEL Nicosia managed just one victory in the Europa League this season, against Asteras Tripolis, and lost the other three games. In their last match they lost 2-0 against the Greek side Asteras Tripolis, and that loss probably sealed their European fate this season.
APOEL Nicosia are a very weak away side. They lost each of their last three away matches in the Europa League without even scoring. In five of their last six away matches they failed to score a single goal.
Their domestic form is also not very good. They are winless in two straight matches in the Cypriot championship, and last weekend they lost with 0-2 at home against their rivals Anorthosis Famagusta.
APOEL Nicosia have six players injured in front of this match, so their line-up will be very mixed.
The Betting Verdict
Back in September Schalke 04 convincingly won with 0-3 away against APOEL Nicosia. If Schalke 04 wins this match, they can calmly focus on the Bundesliga in their remaining matches until the winter break. On the other side, APOEL Nicosia have played fifteen matches against German sides so far and recorded just one victory and one draw in those games.
Both teams struggled in their recent domestic games, but Schalke 04 can seal the top spot in this group with a victory, while APOEL Nicosia do not have big chances for progression.
Schalke 04 will most likely win this match, but the odds for the straight victory are low. I believe that they will start attacking from the beginning of this match in order to score as soon as possible, and then cruise to victory. APOEL Nicosia have too many injured players and their confidence is a bit low, so I would go with Schalke 04 to win both at half-time and full time.
The Pick :
Schalke 04 3-0 APOEL Nicosia
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