Europa League Qualification: Partizan – AEK Larnaca 17/07/2025

Betting on the final outcome

The opening round of Europa League qualifiers features several ties where the outcome is still wide open after the first leg, promising some excitement in the battle for the second qualifying round. One such matchup is in Belgrade where Partizan host Cypriot side AEK Larnaca. In the first leg in Larnaca the home side claimed a 1-0 win.

Watching the first match my impression was that AEK could have easily settled the tie in those initial 90 minutes. They looked significantly superior and only poor finishing on a couple of clear cut chances kept Partizan from conceding more than a single goal. Goalkeeper Milosevic deserves most of the credit for keeping the margin narrow while Cabrera who scored the winning goal was also wasteful in several one on one situations.

Partizan’s coach Srdjan Blagojevic fielded as many as seven players under the age of 21 and for six of them this was their first ever European match. It appears that the Serbian side is undergoing a complete rebuild and does not have particularly high ambitions in European competitions this season. By contrast AEK seem like a much more serious team aiming perhaps even for the final playoff round of the Europa League and this should not be the hurdle where they stumble. Only one player in AEK’s starting eleven holds Cypriot nationality with the majority of the squad coming from Spain and several other countries.

I am convinced Partizan will try to play more offensively in front of their home fans but that could ultimately be their undoing against a team that no longer has to chase the game and can threaten effectively on the counterattack. AEK have shown they possess quick wingers while Partizan’s defense is to put it mildly inexperienced. The odds on an away win are quite attractive at the moment and for those who prefer parlays the X2 double chance is also a solid addition.