On Thursday evening, from 18:00, Partizan Belgrade receives the visit of RFS, from Latvia. The match counts for the qualification in the second round of the Europa League preliminaries. There is a huge difference in value between the two teams and the championships they come from, so the success of the black and whites should not be questioned.
The match at Partizana Stadium finds the Serbs in a very good shape. In the last five stages, Partizan won four times, but lost the match with Novi Pazar (2-3). The victories were obtained in the matches with Napredak (3-1), Javor (4-0), Radnik (2-0) and Indijija (5-0). It is clear that Partizan’s team has guarantees, with the names of Natkho, Pavlovic, Asano, Ostojic, Markovic, Miletic or Stojkovic. The coach of the black and white is the famous Savo Milosevic.
The vice-champion of Latvia comes after a season in which he won 17 matches out of the 28 scheduled, and the team’s top scorer was the Austrian Tomas Simkovic, only 9 successes in the league. Lithuanian manager Dambrauskas has a homogeneous team at his disposal, which helped him win the Latvian Cup last season. Perhaps RFS would not have been in the first league if Skonto had been licensed in 2016, when the Latvian legendary club was excluded from competitions. Instead he promoted RFS, which has since only gone “up”. In the last four editions of the championship he finished on 6, on 5, on 3 and on 2 respectively.
In the RFS group there are several foreigners, including the Argentine Strumia, the Brazilian Emerson Deocleciano, the Ukrainian Kucher, the Ivorians Kouadio and Doumbia, but also the Slovenes Saric and Lipuscek. Last season, RFS was eliminated from the first preliminary round of the Europa League, by the strong Olimpija Ljubljana, after 0-2 at home and a 3-2 away victory. The Latvians were on the verge of a surprise and that result could be an alarm signal for Partizan! If the hosts will approach the game with maximum seriousness, we should see, however, a slight success.
Partizan has not conceded a goal in the last three league games;
At least two goals have been scored in all matches played by Partizan this summer;
RFS comes after 3-0, 4-0, 2-1 and 5-1 victories in the championship, against modest rivals;
At least three goals have been scored in each of RFS ‘s last four games;
It will be the first trip of the Latvians to a stadium in Serbia;
PREDICTION: Over 3,5 goals @ 1,82
