The Europa League is the second biggest European competition. It’s a mixture of differences all clashing together and making up for a spectacle year in and year out. You’ll find the Premier League and La Liga giants competing with a much poorer and weaker multitude of European teams. However, make no mistake - there are no heavy favorites in a competition such as the Europa League.

Betting on accumulators is a very popular option with Europa League. While the probability of winning the bet isn’t very high, just a chance to follow so many matches simultaneously and keeping track of so many different markets, such as 1x2, 1st goalscorer, BTTS, etc. really gives it a special feeling. The more teams you bet on, the better experience you get! In fact, you can use Coral as they offer a 10% accumulator bonus for up to £100!

 

 Europa League format

Formerly known as UEFA Cup, Europa League inherited the historic competition with a complete redesign of the format and identity back in the 2009/10 season. UEFA added eight more teams to the competition, and now we’re set at 12 groups with four teams playing in each group. Due to the varied mix of styles and so many different nations competing, knowing about a certain team’s style of play often brings you an even bigger betting advantage than usual.

Europa league

The top two teams from each group qualify it to the knockout phase, making it 24 teams, and they’re joined in the Round of 16 by eight third-placed teams from the Champions League group stage. This all melts into some spectacular clashes right at the beginning of the knockout phase.

 The winner gets the ultimate prize - an automatic qualification for the Champions League next season, which means a lot either for the teams coming weak leagues as they have to go through many qualification rounds or the teams from the very strongest leagues as it’s hard to crack into the Champions League spots.

Europa League Knockout

image source - uefa.com

Be Careful When Placing Your Bets

Europa League is an unpredictable competition, to say the least. While we usually know what to expect from the Champions League, this competition is a whole different story. The underdogs are very often the ones who come out on top, and big turnarounds in the knockout stages happen far more often than you might think.

A huge factor in this competition is the prestige itself. While it’s financially a major boost for a lot of weaker sides, the teams from Europe’s strongest leagues don’t depend on the European money that much. In fact, the Premier League clubs almost don’t have any financial incentives based on their earnings in the domestic league. This set a precedent where the strongest teams in the Europa League will often rest their players in this competition, especially in longer trips, in order to have the squad fresh and rested for the domestic competitions. Thus, you ought to give it a try and bet on the underdogs when the circumstances are right - your best deal is to use free bets from bookies such as Paddy Power, who offer some Europa League promotions.

In these cases, it’s also pretty useful to keep track of the situation in individual clubs. So, if a manager is in the hot seat in a Premier League side, this means that the fans will only forgive him if he delivers the results in the domestic championship. It can result in that manager putting out reserves in the Europa League, often ignoring the competition for a chance at a Premier League win to save his seat.

Winter is Coming

Unlike in domestic competitions, teams constantly have to adapt to different climates and weather in the Europa League. Due to the number of teams competing, it’s not rare that you’ll find teams from the opposite ends of Europe meeting in the Europa League. For this reason, weather plays a big factor in teams’ performances, as proven over the years.

For example, if a Spanish team is traveling to Russia in December, you better believe they will have a hard time adapting to the cold winter in the East, opposite to the sunny and warm Spain. These situations create value bets and you can take advantage of these at William Hill, as they’ll often offer high odds on the underdogs. Thus, it’s always important to keep these things in mind when placing bets on the Europa League because it can easily be the difference between winning and losing a bet.

travel-distance

image source: mirror.co.uk

Watch Out for the Home Crowd

The atmosphere at the actual stadium in Europa League matches often eclipses that of the Champions League clashes. While you may not get the same impression on TV, the crowds are often louder and make more of an impact on the home side in this competition. This is due to a number of financially weaker teams competing, which automatically means much cheaper tickets compared to Europe’s elite. In return, this results in more local fans getting to the stadium, fully committing to their role in the stands. Ultra groups will often spice things up, making the home stadium advantage a big deal, and always be beware of playing against the home teams with a traditionally solid atmosphere in their own stadium.

Rangers home crowd

Europa League Tips  - Last-Second Bets

While this advice only applies to the knockout stages of the competition, making some last-second bets can often bring loads of profits within seconds. And how do you do this? Well, it’s fairly simple. If the knockout stage tie is within a goal difference, the losing side will go all out to get the goal and qualify through. In return, this leaves acres of open spaces behind the defense for the other team to exploit and can result in a number of free bets.

The bookies often place unreasonably large odds for a winning team to score a goal on a counter, and you can take advantage of this, especially if the team you’re betting on has some quick and pacey forwards that can exploit the inevitable high defensive line in the last minutes of the match. This requires you to be quick on the trigger, quick on your feet, but the rewards can be gigantic. If you’re afraid of putting your money on such risky odds, you ought to use welcome offers as most bookies online have them as soon as you make your deposit.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of money to be made in the Europa League - it mixes in probably more factors than any other elite competition in Europe with the scheduling, traveling, and unpredictability. So, give it a shot, make use of the bonuses, and turn your Europa League knowledge into profits.

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