HJK Helsinki vs Viktoria Plzen Preview 20/07/2022

HJK Helsinki vs Viktoria Plzen – 20/07/2022

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On Wednesday, Finnish champions HJK Helsinki welcome Czech champions Viktoria Plzen to the Bolt Area for the primary leg of their UEFA Champions League qualifier.

Having completed atop the Czech First League final season, Viktoria Plzen head immediately into the second qualifying spherical.

On the flip facet, HJK have been compelled to return by way of a difficult first-round conflict towards Latvian outfit RFS to be able to ebook their place within the second spherical.

HJK gained the primary leg 1-0, however RFS gained the second leg 2-1. The tie was finally selected penalties, with HJK successful 5-4 to punch their ticket to the subsequent section.

Final day trip, HJK claimed a 3-1 victory over VPS. Because of this, they discover themselves second within the Finnish Veikkausliiga – having misplaced simply three of their 15 video games this time period.

It’s price noting that over 1.5 objectives have been scored in three of HJK’s earlier 4 encounters throughout all competitions.

That mentioned, 9 of HJK’s 15 Veikkausliiga video games this season have produced below 2.5 objectives – together with 4 of their earlier 5.

As for Viktoria Plzen, their home marketing campaign doesn’t kick off till July 30. Nevertheless, they’ve performed a sequence of friendlies in latest weeks.

The Czech champions have performed seven friendlies for the reason that finish of the earlier marketing campaign, registering 4 wins, two attracts and one loss.

Final season, Viktoria Plzen misplaced simply two of their 35 league video games to complete seven factors clear on the prime of the Czech First League.

In addition they ended the marketing campaign with one of the best defensive file within the division, conceding solely 21 objectives in 35 video games (0.6 objectives per recreation).

Head-to-head: HJK and Viktoria Plzen have by no means earlier confronted one another, that means we’ve no previous outcomes to evaluate for this fixture.

Crew information: HJK are at the moment with out 4 gamers on account of damage – Roope Riski, Valtteri Moren, Miska Ylitolva and Manuel Martic.

Viktoria Plzen have two damage absentees in the mean time, with Filip Kasa and Petr Pejsa sidelined for the foreseeable future.

Provided that HJK and Viktoria Plzen are comparatively evenly matched, Wednesday’s conflict appears set to be a close-fought battle.

With that in thoughts, Forebet predicts that HJK and Viktoria Plzen will play out a low-scoring draw within the first leg – organising a winner-takes-all second leg.