The first leg in the round of 32 in the Europa League gets underway today with a lot of exciting fixtures. An early match would see Russian club Rubin Kazan take on Israelis' Hapoel Tel Aviv while we also have some late kickoffs with Liverpool squaring up with Unirea.
MATCH OF THE DAY
GAME PREVIEW
The Ajax/Juventus match will take place at the Amsterdam Arena and is highly expected to be an undoubtedly explosive, entertaining and end-to-end match between these 2 European heavyweights.
CLUB FORM
AJAX
Ajax Amsterdam is currently 3rd in the Dutch Eredivisie with 52 points from 23 games, 6 points behind 2nd placed Twente Euschude and 9 points away from league leaders PSV Eindhoven. It is however noteworthy that Ajax has a massive +48 Goal Difference in the Dutch league having scored a whooping 65 goals and conceding only 17 in 23 league games. This is no thanks to the inform striker - Luiz Suarez who has scored an impressive 23 goals and has 4 assists to his credit.
JUVENTUS
On the other hand, crawling Juventus FC are far behind on the chase for the Serie A top spot. They lie in the 6th position with 38 points from 24 games played and are 16 points behind league leaders and rivals Inter Milan and 1 point behind 4th & 5th placed Napoli and Sampdoria respectively. Juventus are also out of the Italian Cup.
MATCH STATS
Since the turn of the new year, Ajax Amsterdam have notched up 5 Wins and 2 Draws in the 7 games played so far, with 4 of the wins at home while Juventus, their Italian counterpart have been drag footing since the beginning of 2010 with 3 Wins, 4 Losses and 2 Draws in 9 matches with the only away win, a 2 - 1 victory over Parma in the first game of the year.
Both teams head into this first leg fixture with a couple of injury concerns. Ajax have both Eyong Enoh and Urby Emanuelson listed as doubtful, 2 other players - Rasmus and Gabri have been ruled out of the encounter. As for Juventus, Influential player - Fabio Cannavaro and Iaquita have been dropped for the match but they welcome back Camonaresi and David Trezeguet for this tricky away tie.
CROSS STATISTICS
W D L GS GA AJAX (HOME) 10 1 0 38 3 JUVENTUS (AWAY) 5 2 4 17 15
MATCH UP
It would be fair to assume that Juventus has all to play for in this match. They are definitely out of the chase for the Italian Serie A League title and have also been knocked out of the Italia Cuppa. Ajax is still in contention in the race for the Dutch Eredivisie title, the Dutch Cup and would be interested in adding the Europa Cup to their list of potential titles this year.
With Luiz Suarez in his form of his life, Ajax impressive home streak, Juventus largely porous defense and the desperation in getting an away goal or win; This match would be all for grabs. Even though Juventus are going to give it all it takes, I see Ajax coming away with a win at home.
In my opinion, I would opt for an Ajax Win and Over 2 goals in this match
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Europe League: Ajax To Roll Over Juventus
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