EUROPA LEAGUE FINAL: The Ultra previews Wednesday’s final between EINTRACHT FRANKFURT v RANGERS including a recommended BETDAQ bet and extended match stats.
EINTRACHT FRANKFURT V RANGERS
8pm It’s Europa League Final time on Wednesday and we have a fascinating night in store on BETDAQ Betting Exchange. Interest from the UK will be high with Rangers involved and they face a very tough task against Eintracht Frankfurt. Rangers have been the Bundesliga giant killers this season though, knocking out Dortmund and RB Leipzig on the way here. They did remarkably well to beat RB Leipzig in the Semi-Final given Leipzig were in superb form, and their fans will no doubt travel in massive numbers here.
Whatever the result, you have to say this is an incredible achievement for Rangers. They won’t forget this Cup run in a hurry, and if they won it would be fantastic for the club. In their way is an excellent Eintracht Frankfurt side who have knocked out Barcelona and West Ham on the way here. They have eased off in the Bundesliga in recent weeks, but that tends to happen when you can’t achieve anything domestically and have a big European Cup final to look forward to. Rangers lost out in Scotland this season to Celtic, and while their level has dropped domestically (they went unbeaten when winning the title last season!), they have performed superbly well in this competition.
It will be interesting to see how Rangers cope with the neutral venue. Their results in this competition have really heavily ben effected by home advantage. The trip to Dortmund is a night I’m sure the Rangers fans will never forget, but it remains their only away win in the competition this season. Apart from Dortmund away, their xG figures away from home have been 0.35, 1.26, 0.40, 0.97, 0.61 and 0.34. Those figures don’t inspire confidence, although I know the fact that this is a neutral venue helps, it’s not Ibrox!
Between the Dortmund and RB Leipzig ties, Rangers got a pretty easy run through with Braga and Red Star Belgrade. They still lost both away legs though, and relied on their strong home form to get them through. Eintracht Frankfurt aren’t as good as Dortmund and RB Leipzig, so Rangers can be confident in that sense, however Eintracht Frankfurt will quite fancy beating Rangers at this venue. Put it this way, they would much rather face Rangers than RB Leipzig when they were looking at the other Semi-Final. We have an open market, with the odds at the time of writing trading Eintracht Frankfurt 2.4, Rangers 3.2 and the draw is 3.55.
It’s hard to see anything bar a pretty cagey start here to be honest, and that will make trading under 2.5 goals a very attractive option in-play. Under 2.5 goals is trading 2.0, and that looks a nice bet from an outright point of view too. Rangers home games have been very open this season, but their away games have saw under 2.5 goals collect five from seven times this season. Eintracht Frankfurt play a more open game, but they can be cagey when they want – they kept Barcelona to 1-1 and Real Betis to 1-1 when they had home advantage, along with fully controlling the West Ham second leg to win 1-0 too.
In the match odds market, I wouldn’t be a fan of Rangers here at 3.2. I would lean towards the draw at 3.55 because I expect a very close game, but the Rangers performances away this season do worry me. Outside of Ibrox they just haven’t been good enough to back them in my opinion – even allowing for a neutral venue. Eintracht Frankfurt play in a very open league in the Bundesliga with a lot of goals, but they have shown that they can be solid at the back too. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see a 0-0 here, but on balance I can’t see a better bet than under 2.5 goals at 2.0. This is such a huge game for both sides, who don’t usually get to this stage, and I can see a very cagey start. The game might open up in the second half a little, but I can still see it being a low scoring game.
The Ultra Says:
Three points win Under 2.5 goals at 2.0 with BETDAQ BETTING EXCHANGE.
You can view all markets here -> https://betdaq.biz/FraRan
MATCH STATS
● This will be the third major European final to be held in Seville. The first saw Steaua Bucuresti beat Barcelona on penalties in the 1986 European Cup at Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán, while the second saw Porto defeat Celtic in the UEFA Cup in 2003 at Estadio La Cartuja.
● Eintracht Frankfurt have reached their third final in major European competition – they lost in the final of the European Cup in 1960 against Real Madrid before beating Borussia Mönchengladbach to lift the UEFA Cup in 1980.
● Rangers are the first Scottish club to reach the final of a major European competition since Rangers themselves in the 2007-08 UEFA Cup. They have reached five such finals, as many as every other Scottish side combined.
● Eintracht Frankfurt and Rangers have played each other twice before in Europe, with a European Cup semi-final tie in 1960 producing a total of 16 goals (Eintracht Frankfurt 12-4 Rangers on aggregate). The eight goals per game generated in this fixture is the highest for either side in major European competition (min. 2 games in a fixture).
● Rangers lost their first two matches in the UEFA Europa League this season, beaten by Lyon and Sparta Prague in the group stages without scoring a single goal. They have become the first team in UEFA Cup/Europa League history to reach the final despite losing their first two matches in the competition proper that season.
● Eintracht Frankfurt are unbeaten in the UEFA Europa League this season, and could become only the third side to win the competition without being beaten, after Chelsea in 2018-19 and Villarreal in 2020-21. Only two sides have reached the final unbeaten but not gone on to lift the trophy – Benfica in 2013-14 and Inter in 2019-20, both whom dropped down into the competition from the UEFA Champions League.
● Rangers have already eliminated two German clubs from the UEFA Europa League this season in Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig. Should they lift the trophy ahead of Eintracht Frankfurt, they will become the first team in UEFA Cup/Europa League history to eliminate three teams from a single nation in one season (excluding group stages).
● Eintracht Frankfurt have played six matches in Spain to date in European competition, but never as a neutral side. Having lost on their first visit in 1969 against Athletic Club, they are since unbeaten in five matches in Spain (W4 D1), beating Real Betis and Barcelona away from home this season in the UEFA Europa League.
● Rangers have played 14 matches in Spain in European competition and have won only once (D3 L10), although that match was the only time they have played in Spain as a neutral side, defeating Dinamo Moscow in the final of the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1972 to win their only European title to date.
● Eintracht Frankfurt coach Oliver Glasner is set to become the fifth Austrian manager to contest a major European final, after Ernst Happel (five times), Max Merkel, Herman Stessl and Ernst Dokupil. Only two of the eight such finals contested by these managers to date have been won by his compatriots, with Happel winning the European Cup twice – in 1970 with Feyenoord against Celtic and in 1983 with Hamburger SV against Juventus.
● Rangers coach Giovanni van Bronckhorst could become the first Dutch manager to lift the UEFA Cup/Europa League title since Dick Advocaat in 2008, who defeated Rangers as Zenit coach. Eintracht Frankfurt manager Oliver Glasner, meanwhile, could become the first Austrian to lead a side to victory in the competition, with Ernst Happel failing on two occasions – with Club Brugge against Liverpool in 1976 and with Hamburger SV against IFK Göteborg in 1982.
● Rangers right-back James Tavernier is the outright top scorer in this season’s UEFA Europa League proper, with his seven goals also the most ever by a Rangers player in a single season in a major European competition (excl. qualifiers).
● Daichi Kamada is Eintracht Frankfurt’s top scorer in the UEFA Europa League this season with five goals, which has taken his tally for the club in major European competition to 11 (excluding qualifiers); only three players have scored more such goals for the club – Bernd Hölzenbein (18), Bernd Nickel (12) and Anthony Yeboah (12). Should Kamada score in this match, he would be the first Japanese player score in a major European final, and only the second Asian after Cha Bum-kun (South Korea) in the 1988 UEFA Cup for Bayer 04 Leverkusen vs Espanyol.
