i backed valencia to win the uefa cup before a ball was even kicked and so far so good.........
but im looking to hedge my bets and maybe add another 1 or 2 teams to lift the uefa cup ehich brings me to.........
CSKA moscow @ 20/1
CSKA know what it takes to win the uefa cup afer lifting the trophy back in 2005.
the russian league goes into hibernation in the winter and this will leave cksa moscow with only the uefa cup on their minds and could be a massive advantage to them only having one competition to worry about
last years winners zenit were in the same boat with the domestic league having a break over the winter months until march
zenit as im sure you will know won last years uefa cup beating rangers 2-0 in the final, but on their way to the final beat teams like villareal, munich, leverkusen and marseille, and when you look at the fact european champions man utd havent even scored a single goal against villareal in 6hrs of football (4 matches) they did well to go all the way.......
so did zenit only having to worry about one competition give them a big advantage?
moscow is never a nice place to go to over the winter months and 20/1 is good value i feel (10/1 they reach final)
if you go back to 2005 when liverpool were out of the fa cup, carling and premiership title race before xmas even came around (nothing new there) that only left liverfool with the champs league to worry about and practically had 10-14 days to prepare for all champs leagues games as they were out of everything else, this gave them a masssive advantage and they went onto to win the trophy........my point is when you dont have domestic league games or domestic cup games to worry surely you have an edge over opponants playing numerous games in short periods of time
before their semi final with chelsea liverpool went 11 days without a single game and in this period chelsea had 2 cup games to play, so whilst liverpool had the luxury of 11 days preporation, chelsea had 2 90 minute games to play
CSKA 20/1 to win uefa cup 10/1 to reach final