Against all odds, Benfica has the 1st chance to win at Pecsi
Against all odds, Benfica has the 1st chance to win at Pecsi
In the 2nd round of the Fiba Europe Cup, the Hungarian team from Pecsi VSK-Veolia was given as the big favorite of the game against the visitors, Benfica Lisboa. But if you study a bit the whole context, you’ll see that Benfica actually is by far better.
The results of the last round in the domestic leagues can mislead us: Benfica has lost to Porto, their main competitors in Portugal and in the same time, Pecsi won against Kormend. But Kormend was not in the best situation, because they have recently lost the center Akos Keller who signed with Zadar in ABA League, so it was an easy win for Pecsi at home.
Now in front of Benfica it will be another different story for the Hungarian team:
- Pecsi will miss for this encounter the American forward Quincy Diggs, their main scorer (24 ppg) and the best assist-man (5.3 assists per game)
- for Benfica Lisboa, Beto Gomes will be back after playing a couple of minutes against Porto last week. He was injured, but slowly he is coming back to his shape. He is a very versatile center with a huge Eurocup experience, reaching the semifinals of that European competition with Trento in the past
- Benfica has 6 foreigners plus Beto Gomes and a couple of local players, while Pecsi has now only 4 foreigners. One of them is Andrija Ciric who next month will be 39 years old, so I am not so enthusiastic about the Hungarian squad’s possibilities to win this game
- the odd is dropping slowly on Benfica (some websites had 3,00 on them and now it’s around 2,50)
There are as well some arguments for Pecsi to win like: Benfica made a long trip from Porto to Hungary and they could be tired, the host team is at their first home-game in Fiba Europe Cup and their fans will support them a lot, but I see value on Benfica’s odd for this encounter.
Photo: Fiba Europe Cup
Gratian Cormos
