Sparta Prague vs. Olympique Lyon: Preview and betting tips

Sparta Prague hosts Olympique Lyon in the third match of the Europa League group stage, having won both their matches so far. Can Sparta beat the favourite or will it have to accept defeat at home?

The Europa League is in full swing. On Thursday it will continue with the third match and we will now take a look at the clash between Sparta Prague and Olympique Lyon.

Sparta are doing quite well so far in the 2021/22 season. They are four points behind league leaders Viktoria Plzen, but the fans are excited about winning the derby after six years.

Thanks to this, Sparta is one point ahead of Slavia, but the latter has a home game against Olomouc Sigma to play. Apart from the league results, however, there is also satisfaction in the European Cup.

There, although Sparta only drew in the opening game at the Danish Bröndby, it won at home against Rangers and is now second with four points and only two points behind first-placed Lyon.

The latter first beat Rangers 2-0 away in Europe and then also beat Bröndby 3-0. In the league, however, it’s not such a ride.

Olympique is in sixth place with 16 points after ten rounds. It has won only four games, drawn the same number of games and gone down twice.

However, this is mainly due to a poor start to the season, now Lyon are in form and in their last league game they beat rival Monaco 2-0.

This match was decided by Karl Toko Ekambi, who will surely be one of Sparta’s biggest weapons. He is the top scorer in the group stage with three goals.

Sparta will rely more on a solid defence, in which we should again see Ondřej Čelůstka, Filip Panák and David Hancock in addition to Tomáš Wiesner.

In addition, David Pavelka may return to the midfield compared to the league game against Pardubice and Ladislav Krejci Jr. should be available as well.

What to bet on in this match? The odds on the favourite from Lyon are around 2. Bettors see it similarly, 93% of them bet on the away team.

However, the odds can be improved by betting on Lyon to win in the second half. This is where Sparta have been getting more goals in recent games. It got two goals from Pardubice, one each from Zlín, Jablonec and Plzeň.