Germany Bundesliga 2 - 11.12.2011: Dynamo Dresden - Energie Cottbus
http://www.oddsportal.com/soccer/germany/2-bundesliga-2011-2012/dresden-energie-cottbus-806351/#ah;2
Dynamo Dresden (-0.25)
Odds: 2.04 (SBOBet)
Stake: 5/10
If we just compare team strengths of both teams today, Dresden has more quality. It should be added that the home advantage in Dresden is a massive one and Cottbus has big internal problems as well as their whole back four will be out.
First of all, a few sentences about Dynamo. I appreciate them as a team which always plays with maximal effort and which is good in attacking fast. They were very unlucky not to win against Frankfurt last week at home where they have clearly been disadvantaged by the referee. Generally their offensive is a really good one and their technical ability is outstanding for a team which actually struggles against relegation. They never have problems to create goal chances, always play with huge effort and have two fantastic strikers, named Zlatko Dedic and Mickael Pote. If Dresden plays against weak sides with weak defences, they always create tons of high quality chances, not by chance they trashed Karlsruhe 5:1 at home several weeks ago and last week they would have deserved to win as well. Good midfielder Robert Koch will be out due to a yellow lock, still this shouldnt be the biggest deal ever because the quality of Marcel Heller who is likely to replace him is roughly equal.
Besides appreciating Dresden as a strong home team with a really good technical ability and powerful offensive, I must admit that this is rather a bet against Cottbus than one on Dresden. Cottbus has to recover from a big shock. On Thursday, their long-term manager Pele Wollitz who was like a friend to his players suprisingly announced that he abandons his team and will be new manager of his former club Osnabrück. Nobody expected that and it was a big shock for this very young team for sure. Former assistant coach of Wollitz, Markus Feldhoff, will take the seat on the bench ad interim. The team has a big lack of self confidence anyway but the fact that their charismatic manager Wollitz abandons his club three days before this match will for sure not help them to improve their self confidence.
But the still bigger reason to go against them will be their lower team quality today which is caused by injuries. The whole defence will be out for today's match. Besides long-term injured player Markus Brenzska, Uwe Hünemeier and Christoph Schorch will miss this game with injuries. Their back four against Dresden consists of Daniel Ziebig, Roger, Julian Börner and Konstantin Engel. Ziebig is not good but at least decent. Roger rarely has good games, usually he is an instability factor but his form lately improved some. Howsoever, Börner is totally unexperienced and at least one class weaker than Schorch. Engel is one of the weakest defenders in this league, he is extremely poor and I promise you that Dresden will owe him a few nice goal chances.
So we can summarize that Cottbus will have an extremely bad back four prior to this match. Perhaps even the worst back four of the league besides Karlsruhe's one. Börner together with Engel, that sounds really very, very poor. But this is still not everything. Their superb goalkeeper Thorsten Kirschbaum sustained an injury in the training and will be replaced by second goalkeeper Rene Renno which is another big downgrade because of the fact that Kirschbaum is a really good goalkeeper. As if this wasn't enough, their only quality striker in the squad and the only player of Cottbus who has superb quality, Dimitar Rangelov, is a serious doubt prior to this match and he has to use a splint on his hand which could potentially affect his performance quality.
So what will we see today? A hot derby match where Dresden should be clearer favourites. With regard to the team quality, Dresden is better and will have better individual players today. Also they are well-matched whereas Cottbus' back four has never played together in this formation so far. Furthermore, Dresden has one of the most fanatic home crowds in this league and the home advantage is a massive one. Last but not least Cottbus' very young team (the youngest one of the league) will still suffer from the big shock of the Wollitz-leaving which should be taken into consideration as well. So we have much better team atmosphere on the home side, better team quality, strong offensive vs. an extremely poor defence and a big home advantage and still we can grab such nice odds on the home team. Just a gift which we will for sure not miss out.