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Soccer Betting – Porto, Roma Duke it out for UCL Berth

Zack Garrison

by Zack Garrison in News

Updated Jan 17, 2018 · 9:39 AM PST

FC Porto (+432) at AS Roma (-137), Draw (+29)

The second leg of the two-game playoff between FC Porto and AS Roma goes tomorrow at Olympic Stadium in Rome (2:45 PM Eastern). After a 1-1 draw in the first leg, there’s everything to play for in the finale as both squads look for a berth in the 2016-17 Champions League Group Stage.

The 1-1 draw has Roma sitting in a good spot. Thanks to scoring an away goal, the Italians would advance with a win or a 0-0 draw. That said, they likely feel like they should have gotten a better result in game one. They dominated the play, but could only put one past Porto goalie Iker Casillas, and that actually came on an own goal by Porto’s Felipe in the 21st minute.

Roma won’t be at full strength tomorrow as Thomas Vermaelen was ejected in the 41st minute after picking up his second yellow card of the game. The team should come in confident, nonetheless, after demolishing Udinese (4-0 home) in its first Serie game of the year. Winger Diego Perotti scored a brace.

Porto are also off to a hot start domestically. They’re one of just two teams to start Portugal’s Primeira Liga with two straight wins, beating Estoril (1-0 home) and Rio Ave (3-1 road) to open the year.

Andre Silva was able to salvage a point for Porto in the first leg of this series when he converted a penalty in the 61st minute.

Porto haven’t had much luck in Italy, nor in these UCL playoff series. They’re just 3-3-6 on Italian soil and lost their last playoff series to French side Lille two years ago (3-0 on aggregate).

Porto were lucky to get out of the first leg with a point. Heading to Italy and facing a Roma team that reached the UCL quarters just last year is going to be too much for the Portuguese power.

Pick: AS Roma (-137).


 

 

Photo credit: Paul Rudderow CC BY-SA 2.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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