Europa League Betting – Can Reds Keep Rolling at Villarreal?

Liverpool (+210) at Villarreal (+150), Draw (+229)

One stage and two matches are all that separate Villarreal from their first European club tournament final. But those two matches will come against a storied Liverpool team that’s playing its best soccer of the season. The first leg of the two-game Europa League semifinal goes tomorrow (Thursday, April 28) at El Madrigal Stadium in Castelló, Spain (3:05 PM Eastern).

Villarreal have reached three European semifinals before, but lost them all. In 2003-04, they lost to Valencia in the UEFA Cup semis; in 2005-06, they fell to Arsenal in the Champions League; and, most recently, they lost to Porto in the 2010-11 Europa League.

They also enter this year’s clash with Liverpool as underdogs, sitting at 3/2 to advance to the final.

That betting line likely won’t bother the team, which hasn’t suffered a setback in its last 11 Europa League fixtures (8-3-0) and is a perfect 6-0 at home. They’ll have to contend with a sizzling Liverpool offense, but with just one goal surrendered at home this Europa League season, Villarreal have every reason for confidence heading into the first leg.

Liverpool may be under the impression they’re the team of destiny in this year’s competition. In the quarterfinals against Borussia Dortmund, the Reds came back from 3-1 down in the second half to win 4-3 at Anfield (and advance 5-4 on aggregate). It was one of the most improbable comebacks we’ve seen in club soccer all season.

The Reds undefeated streak is one better than Villarreal’s; they actually haven’t lost all tournament, going 5-7-0 in 12 matches.

They don’t have a lot of wins on the road, though, drawing five of six.

Tomorrow’s game will be the first ever meeting between the teams. With both teams in form, there is no reason to look for another pick than the obvious one.

Pick: Draw (+229).

(Photo Credit: Dean Jones (Flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/].)