That’s why we bet on this Roma Feyenoord game

The two sides finished 1-1 in the Netherlands, or they could be in for an exciting rematch in Rome.

Thursday sees the return legs of the last 16 of the Europa League’s knockout stages. There are several great matches taking place, and in this edition of our column we focus on Roma vs Feyenoord.

The two sides finished 1-1 in Rotterdam, meaning that the question of progression is still undecided. The bookmakers have the Italians as the favourites in the return leg, with the triumphant Italian side offering an average of 2.15 times the odds.

Team news Roma vs Feyenoord

The two sides failed to settle a week ago, with Igor Paixao taking the lead in first-half stoppage time, but Lukaku equalised midway through the second half.

The teams otherwise played a good and hard-fought game, which is somewhat surprising in that Feyenoord’s side ended up with far more players out than the foreign specialist portals had predicted, or in many cases a very reserve side that managed to draw. Rotterdam were without BIjlow, Geertruida, Jahanbakhsh, Timber, Trauner, Zechiel and Van Den Belt, while Roma were the only team to miss a week.

The sides have since played one championship match each. The Italians won 3-0 at home to Frosinone to move into sixth place in the Serie A table. Feyenoord, on the other hand, only narrowly beat Waalwijk by a goal in stoppage time, despite playing nearly 60 minutes with the man advantage, but the three points consolidated their second position in the Eredivisie.

Roma’s only absentee this weekend was Abraham, who will not play on Thursday, while Bove was sidelined at De Kuip and will not play in the return leg. For the Dutch, Timber and Geertruida are back and played the whole of Sunday’s league match, so they will be in a better position for the return leg, but the others are still out.

Topsters’ prediction to Roma vs Feyenoord

A close rematch is expected, as can be seen from the first match and the history of the two sides. We bet on at least five penalty cards in the first leg, and we’ll do the same in the second leg, as we think there’s a lot of potential in this one again.

The match is not yet decided, but there is no margin for error, or a meeting like this has plenty of cards. Especially as the referee will be Jesús Gil, who has been throwing out a lot of cards lately, even though he had an interesting take on the Granada-Almería clash at the weekend. In which he even managed to give out five yellow cards, including one withdrawn…

In other words, we think that everything is in place for the sides to score at least five penalties this time too, so we’ll take the overt at odds of 1.80 times the 4.5 mark.

✅ Tip #1: Penalty cards over 4.5 @1.86