This week, we’re giving you the lowdown on what happened in the first leg of last week’s Champions League playoffs, with some eye-catching odds ahead of the return legs, plus a look at the betting for Scotland’s most valuable jumps horse race, the Morebattle Hurdle.
Champions League Second Leg Play-offs
- Start: 24 and 25 February
- Venue: Stadiums around Europe
- Coverage: TNT Sports/Amazon Prime/other European TV channels
- Fun fact: Juventus’ 5-2 loss at Galatasaray last week stunned many, but they’ve incurred heavier defeats than that in this competition in the past. In the 1961-2 European Cup, they lost 4-0 in Spain against Real Madrid, but things were even worse three years earlier; Wiener Sport-Club beat them 7- 1 in Vienna.
Betting Tips
Newcastle beat poor old Qarabag 6-1 last week, so few are predicting a turnaround when they meet in Northeast England on Tuesday night. Anthony Gordon scored four in the first leg and is 4.33 to be the first goalscorer in the second leg, 1.67 to score anytime, and 12.0 to score a hat-trick, the latter price available with Betfred.
It should also be relatively straightforward for PSG to overcome Monaco after beating them 3-2 away from home last week. The Parisians are 1.25 to win the match and just 1.01 to qualify, though with just one goal in it, lovers of longshots may just fancy a small bet on Monaco at 15.0 to progress.
Another side expected to progress is Galatasaray, though you may be surprised to find out who they’re likely to knock out: Juventus. In a crazy match last week that saw Juve take a 2-1 lead at one stage and featured seven goals and a red card, it was the Turkish outfit who ended up winning 5-2. Though Juventus are just 1.5 to win the match on home soil, they’re understandably a much bigger 4.5 to qualify. Another seven goals in the second leg is available at 11.0.
Real Madrid beat Benfica in Lisbon 1-0 last week thanks to s Vinicius Jr wonder strike and are well-fancied to go through themselves. They’re 1.4 to win the game and 1.06 to qualify, with a Jose Mourinho masterclass/miracle to get the Eagles through, available at 9.0. That man Vinicius is 5.5 to open the scoring in this match, having done so already last week.
One evenly-poised tie is Atletico Madrid - Club Brugge, which ended 3-3 last week in Belgium. With home advantage and a much better pedigree in this competition, Atletico are expected to progress, as odds of 1.36 to win the match suggest. Brugge are 5.0 to go through, while a repeat of that 3-3 draw from last week is available at 36.00; a straight draw with any scoreline is 5.5.
But perhaps the most intriguing second leg of all is Inter - Bodo Glimt. On an artificial pitch in Norway (it’s pretty cold over there at this time of the year) Bodo stunned the Serie A leaders with a thoroughly deserved 3-1 win in a match where they played exactly the brand of unpredictable, attacking football that has made Europe’s top clubs stand up and take note.
The bookies think Inter should win the match, they’re just 1.2 to do so, but Bodo look a decent price at 2.1 to go through. This is the team that beat Atletico 2-1 in Madrid in late January, Manchester City at home the week before that, and also secured a very creditable 2-2 draw away at Dortmund.
So if Inter think this is an overachieving Norwegian side who are just happy to have got this far, they have another think coming.
The Morebattle Hurdle
- Start: Saturday, February 28, 2026, 15:30
- Venue: Kelso Racecourse, Scotland
- Coverage: ITV
- Fun fact: Second-favourite Cracking Rhapsody won the last two editions of this race and is on course for an unprecedented third win in a row.
Betting
They say ‘all roads lead to Cheltenham’ when it comes to winter hurdles races in the UK, and that’s as true of the bet365 Morebattle Hurdle as it is of any other race in the build-up to the Cheltenham Festival.
It’s Scotland’s most valuable hurdle race with a prize fund of £120,000, so plenty at stake for that reason alone, but there’s a further motive why owners and trainers are so desperate for one of their horses to win both here in Scotland and then again at Cheltenham next month.
Victory here in the Scottish Borders for any horse followed by a win in any race at the Cheltenham Festival triggers a £100,000 bonus for the winning owner.
This was achieved back in 2021 when The Shunter followed up success in this race with a win in the Paddy Power Plate Handicap Chase (Grade 3) just two weeks later, trainer Emett Mullins and owner Paul Byrne getting a handy little payday on the back of that double.
42 horses entered the 2026 edition to begin with, and those will be whittled down to the maximum entry limit of 18.
It’s a 2-mile affair and is a handicap hurdle, meaning that horses carry different amounts of weight according to their official ratings: the higher the rating, the more weight they carry in a bid to make it a level playing field, which of course, is the whole point of a handicap race.
As ever, with ‘Cheltenham’ on everyone’s lips, a good starting point is to talk about the Irish-trained horses who have a shot at winning this one and then going on to secure a win in Gloucestershire in a couple of weeks’ time.
I started a Joke (trained by Charles Byrnes) is the 4.0 favourite to win here on Saturday, with Laffi (William Durkin), also trained on the Emerald Isle, currently available at around 17.0.
At the same price, you can back Dedicated Hero, trained by a ‘local’ in Sandy Thomson, who is from Greenlaw, and should know this racetrack and conditions pretty well. At a slightly higher price, there’s Wise Eagle, at odds of 21.0, who is trained by another Scot, Adam Nicol.
The second-favourite is Cracking Rhapsody at 7.0 (see the fun fact above), followed by Spectacularshine at 8.0, and then there are four horses all available at odds of 11.0: Quaviste, Captain Hugo, Hot Fuss, and Jack Hyde.
But I Started a Joke is the one to beat, as we know. It will be no laughing matter for whoever has to pay out that big bonus if he wins here and is victorious again in Cheltenham.
Bet of the Week: Back Bodo Glimt to Qualify Against Inter Milan
We’ve explained most of the reasoning behind this bet already, but Bodo Glimt’s 3-1 lead going into the second leg against Inter may be enough to see them through.
Before that match last week, they avoided defeat in all three of their Champions League encounters against Atletico Madrid, Man City, and Dortmund, no less two of those away, so a fifth game (including that Inter win) without tasting defeat in this competition would see them through comfortably.
