Griffin Wong offers a preview and prediction for Thursday’s Europa League Quarterfinal match between Bologna and Aston Villa.
On Tuesday, Arsenal’s 1-0 win in the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals against Sporting Lisbon secured the Premier League a fifth spot in next season’s League Phase. But there are still pathways for there to be six — or even seven — Premier League teams in Europe’s top competition next season. Liverpool could win the Champions League and finished either sixth or seventh, and Aston Villa could win the Europa League and finish either sixth or seventh.
The Villans might qualify for the Champions League through their league placement — they currently sit fourth in the table, six points clear of sixth-place Chelsea — but if they don’t, they have a decent shot of winning the Europa League.
Their quarterfinal journey will begin on Thursday with a 3 p.m. ET (9 p.m. local) road clash against Bologna. The return leg is scheduled for next Thursday at the same time in Birmingham, with the winner going on to face either Porto or Nottingham Forest in the semifinals.
Aston Villa is a +130 favorite to win the opening leg at DraftKings Sportsbook (-275 to advance to the semifinals), and i Rossoblù are +220 (+210 to advance). There are +230 odds that the teams will head to England all square.
Bologna vs. Aston Villa prediction, pick
The Villans have been one of the best teams in the competition all season, winning seven of their eight League Phase matches to finish second in the table behind Lyon on goal difference. They also made light work of the Round of 16, beating Lille 3-0 on aggregate. Bologna shouldn’t be underestimated, though; i Rossoblù are hot, having picked up eight wins, two losses and a draw in their last 11 matches. Though they’ve had a fairly easy schedule in Serie A during that time, wins are wins, and to outlast Roma — which finished eighth in the League Phase table and sits ahead of them domestically — isn’t nothing.
Bologna has a pretty well-rounded squad, with Argentinian wunderkind Santiago Castro and Italian veteran Riccardo Orsolini each contributing 11 goals in all competitions. Federico Bernardeschi has seven, including five in the Europa League. As a result, i Rossoblù have had among the strongest attacks in the competition, creating chances worth the third-most expected goals and uncorking the most shots on target per match. The issue is that they’ve been more gettable defensively, allowing merely the 14th-fewest expected goals per match and the second-highest shot-in-box percentage. Their strong ground and aerial duel win rates have allowed them to stop opponents from generating many shots, but their vulnerability could be exploited by Aston Villa’s fearsome front line. Being without first-choice goalkeeper Łukasz Skorupski won’t help, given that backup Federico Ravaglia’s save percentage in the Europa League has been 14.7 percentage points lower than Skorupski’s.
Aston Villa has the bigger names. Like Bologna, the Villans have had plenty of contributors from all around the squad, as Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins have 10 goals each and John McGinn, Emi Buendía, and Donyell Malen have all smashed home seven. Villa’s attack has been more muted in the Europa League, as it has produced merely the 13th-most expected goals, but it has been more clinical, ranking eighth in goals minus expected goals. Defensively, the Villans have also been stellar, ranking fifth in opponent expected goals and allowing the sixth-fewest goals relative to expectation. Villa also hasn’t allowed a goal via a fast-break, header, free kick, or penalty, the only team not to do so. While the Villans haven’t won ground duels at elite rates, they’ve made up for it by dominating aerial duels and by playing the offsides trap to perfection. Plus, in addition to rostering arguably the world’s best goalkeeper in two-time Yashin Trophy winner Emi Martínez, backup Marco Bizot is solid as well, having stopped seven shots during the teams’ matchup in the League Phase.
Though the first match between the two was even closer than the result indicated, with i Rossoblù controlling possession for the majority of the game and uncorking 17 shots to Aston Villa’s 12, that was more than six months ago, and both teams have improved dramatically since then. The Villans’ ability to play the offsides trip won’t matter too much against Bologna’s relatively passive style, but their dominance in the air is an excellent counter for i Rossoblù’s reliance on crosses and headers, and their ability to make the most of fast-breaks could break Bologna’s press. I’m not totally buying i Rossoblù’s recent streak, given that the highest-ranked Serie A team they beat domestically in that stretch was 10th-ranked Sassuolo. Despite not quite being able to beat top six teams in the Premier League as of late, Villa should be able to get the job done here.
Best Bet: Aston Villa/Aston Villa Halftime/Full Time (+235)