Football Bet of the Day: It’d be Ludo-crous to oppose the hosts

Ludogorets v MOL Vidi
Wednesday 25 July, 18:00

They left it late, very late, but our pick Astana got the job done in the end last night. Hungarian Laszlo Kleinheisler, who had never previously scored for the Kazakh side, scored his and Astana’s second against Midtjylland deep into stoppage time to secure a 2-1 first-leg lead.

We’re sticking with the Champions League, because a vastly experienced Ludogorets team is taking on Hungarian side MOL Vidi.

Ludogorets have been Bulgarian champions in each of the last seven seasons, and as a result they have been regular competitors in the Champions League and Europa League. They have rubbed shoulders with Real Madrid, PSG, Liverpool and Arsenal, and this has given them plenty of experience as a unit. They started this UCL campaign like they mean business, shredding Crusaders 9-0 on aggregate.

MOL Vidi won the Hungarian title last season, but you might be wondering who they actually are. Well, confusion is understandable, but until this month they were known as Videoton, only for major sponsor MOL to insist on a deeply unpopular name change.

MOL Vidi scraped past Luxembourg side Dudelange in the previous round, and it’s worth remembering that they haven’t reached the group stage of a European competition since they qualified for Group G in the Europa League in 2013. In last season’s Europa League they were smacked 4-0 by Partizan in the playoff round, and I think a similar fate could befall them here.

Ludogorets have won all four of their competitive matches this season without conceding a goal, and they haven’t lost a home game since February, when they were turned over by AC Milan. I’ll back them to win comfortably here.