Sheriff Tiraspol take on the visitors Farul Constanta in the second leg of UEFA Champions League 1/8-finals qualification. First leg result: 0-1. The match will be played on Tuesday, July 18th at Stadionul Sheriff (Tiraspol).
Sheriff need only a victory. The Yellow-Blacks deserve comparisons with giants like PSG – perhaps, they are closer to the French club in terms of status than to Bayern Munich. Their massive financial advantage allows them to dominate the national level so unequivocally that all these trophies and titles become somewhat unremarkable, and they hardly even notice another Moldovan championship. Moreover, losing the title a couple of times is quite painless for them. The criterion of success becomes their performance in European competitions. Finally, two years ago, they managed to reach the main round of the Champions League. There, the debutants performed exceptionally well: they won against Real Madrid in Madrid and earned 4 points against Shakhtar. Even in 2022, despite not being able to replicate the results without Vernydub, they still took third place in the Europa League and advanced to the playoffs of the Conference League by defeating Partizan, only succumbing to Nice. It is clear that they had ambitious plans this time as well, but now, to begin with, they need to make up for the minimal defeat in Ovidiu.
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Farul will try to utilize their home advantage. The Sharks have a rather complicated and somewhat convoluted history. They represent the team from Constanța, which has been around for over 100 years, and the famous port remains their formal location. However, their predecessor, which reached the cup final and actively competed in the top division of Romania, was declared bankrupt in 2016 and sent to the amateur level, from which they slowly made their way back. In the end, in 2021, the sailors merged with Viitorul, the brainchild of local legends Gheorghe Hagi and Popescu, which won the title in 2017. The revamped project became the country's champion and is now essentially making its debut on the international stage (excluding the Intertoto Cup in 1995 and 2006). They successfully achieved this by defeating an experienced local opponent with Kiki's lone goal. But now they need to avoid defeat in Tiraspol and progress further.
Last Wednesday, these two teams played their first match against each other. The Wasps did not perform well in their first away match. Now they need to regroup and showcase their maximum potential. We believe that the Moldovan champions will win in regular time at home.
Prediction for the match: Sheriff Tiraspol to win.
