Twenty-eight teams will be in action this week in the second legs of the Champions League second round of qualifying as they all dream of making the Group Stages of the world’s richest football club competition. There are a couple of big-name teams taking to the field, so let’s talk you through the format, the biggest games of the week and our best betting tip.
Best Bet: Back Hearts to Beat Sturm Graz and Over 2.5 Goals
Hearts will have been relatively confident of a good showing after a superb season in the Scottish Premiership where they almost pipped Celtic to the title, but they found Austrian side Sturm Graz a little too hot to handle last week, going 4-0 down and pretty much ending their own chances of progressing after just the first match.
But Hearts can consider themselves a bit unlucky. They had 19 shots to Graz’s 20, and both had exactly six shots on target, and despite losing the game 4-0, they actually had considerably more possession (67%) than their opponents.
Now on home soil, with good support from their fans and hopefully a little more luck, they should at least save some face by winning the game. And if they do, it’s unlikely to be a low-scoring one because they really need to go for it. You can get odds of 2.5 on Hearts winning with over 2.5 goals in the game, and that looks decent.
- Betting Tip: Hearts win and over 2.5 goals
- Odds: 2.5 (at the time of writing)
What Are the Matches to Look Out For?
The League Path features teams who didn’t win their leagues but finished as runners-up from somewhat strong leagues: the Turkish, Scottish, Austrian and Polish ones.
Of these, Fenerbahce is considered the strongest team based on a coefficient of 57.750 and they justified their favouritism in the first leg by beating Gornik Zabrze of Poland (coefficient of 9.350) last week, courtesy of a goal from Brazilian Talisca, who spent a couple of years playing alongside Cristiano Ronaldo at Al-Nassr (before moving to Turkey), scoring an impressive 62 goals in just 78 games for the Saudi Arabian 2026 champions.
This is a serious team that also includes former Wolves skipper Nelson Semedo, ex-Manchester United midfielders Fred and Mason Greenwood, Marco Asensio, once of Real Madrid, and one-time Manchester City goalkeeper Ederson; so you can see the bookies are showing them plenty of respect.
Fenerbahce are 1.44 to win the second leg, 6.0 to win 1-0 or 2-0 and just 1.03 to qualify. Zabrze are 6.0 to win the game and a big 9.0 to qualify, while things are pretty tight on the over/under 2.5 goals market, with ‘overs’ the slight favourite at 1.75.
The other tie that catches the eye is Hearts vs Sturm Graz. Hearts also produced the mother of all upsets when they almost beat Celtic to the Scottish title last season, and their reward for that effort was a rare appearance in Champions League qualifying. But they’re unlikely to be making the next round after going 4-0 down at Sturm Graz last week.
Odds of 13.0 give you a clear picture of the uphill task facing them in terms of qualifying, with a more realistic target being that they at least win the Second Leg, which they’re 1.75 to do, while Graz are 3.7 to win in Scotland, just as they did last week.
Other interesting ties to keep an eye on are Universitatea Craiova v Levski Sofia and Shamrock Rovers v Ararat Armenia.
Fun Fact
The most successful team in this year’s Champions League qualifying and the one with the highest coefficient (65.750) is Lyon, by some distance.
The 7-time French champions finished fourth last season in Ligue 1 to reach this stage of qualification and will play Sparta Prague in the next round over two legs.
Lyon are two-time Champions League semi-finalists and won the now-defunct Intertoto Cup back in 1997.
