Tonight is the kickoff for 10 weeks of playoffs in the Belgian League which hopefully will be interesting at all fronts. It starts with a playoff 2 match between Leuven and Charleroi
OH Leuven vs Charleroi
So 6 teams will be playing for the top spot in Playoff 2 and 5 of them are within 1 point. So it somewhat can be expected that at the start, they all have some ambition with one team after the other dropping out as they will be playing matches without something really to play for. Charleroi coach stated that they will take it serious and play the A-Squad with the ambition to take the 1st place and they certainly have the team to do so. However, each year in the cup they also take it serious and get eliminated quickly. So for me, these are just big words that I still need to see. Based on the numbers, Charleroi in the regular season was a break-even team away against the asian handicap and slightly under. This wile Leueven at home actually crushed it going 8.5W-2L-4.5P against their handicap all despite the fact that they rarely really played good matches. They have the quality in the team and this might be somewhat of a fresh start for them. Their coach stated that scoring goals and actually taking wins instead of draws (13 of those in the regular season) is what they will focus on and that he also will try to find a mix between giving some youngsters a chance while playing the A-Squad. In past years, Leuven was one of the teams who actually did great in Playoff 2 taking it the most serious even though that was under a different coach. I get that Charleroi on paper and based on what they showed in their best matches this season can be seen as the favorite. However, for me the reality remains that OHL only lost 1 match at home in the regular season so to make them the underdog today just feels like a step too far. I ended up taking 0.4 units on
OH Leuven +0.25 @ 1.804. Charleroi won their last 6 away corner matchups while OHL lost theirs at home by 5+ in 4 of the last 5. So I also could not resist a 0.2 unit bet on
Charleroi -0.5 corners @ 1.950 even though this gives increased risk in case there would be an early 0-1.
