CSKA Sofia – Maccabi Tel Aviv Preview – Can Maccabi engineer a fightback?
CSKA Sofia’s betting tips for this Europa League second leg are shaped by what already happened in Georgia last week, more than by anything you’d read into a fresh ninety minutes in Sofia. The Bulgarian side beat Maccabi Tel Aviv three-nil in the first leg, played out in Batumi because Maccabi still cannot stage a UEFA fixture on home soil, and they arrive at Vasil Levski as clear favourites to see the tie out. Kick-off is at 18:00 GMT on 13 August 2026, and while Maccabi need something close to a footballing miracle to turn this around, CSKA have every reason to keep their foot down rather than sit on what they already have.
Maccabi arrived at this qualifying round full of running, having put six goals without reply past Sheriff Tiraspol across the previous round, most of the damage done away from home. None of that form survived contact with a CSKA side that pressed high and punished every mistake in Batumi. Max Ebong headed the hosts in front early, Leandro Godoy doubled the lead before the half hour, and Joël Zwarts added a third deep into stoppage time to turn a promising tie into a rescue mission. CSKA are back playing regular continental football for the first time in years, and it shows: this is a team enjoying every minute of the run.
CSKA Sofia – Maccabi Tel Aviv Betting Tips
None of the picks here are about hedging a formality. They’re about how a game with one side chasing the impossible and the other with nothing left to fear tends to actually unfold.
Betting Tip: CSKA Sofia to win
CSKA didn’t sneak past Maccabi in the first leg, they took the game apart, and now they get to finish it in front of their own crowd. A three-goal aggregate cushion strips any nerves from the home dressing room, and a team that’s already been the better side all tie tends to get more dangerous once the pressure lifts, not less. Backing the hosts to win the night itself, not just the tie, is the anchor of our card here.
Betting Tip: Both teams to score
Maccabi have no real choice but to commit numbers forward from the first whistle. A side staring at an all but unbridgeable gap doesn’t sit in and hope, it throws bodies at the box and accepts what that opens up at the other end. That should suit a CSKA team that scored three times in the first leg alone and has shown no sign of easing off with the tie already half won. Worth checking the latest match odds before kick-off, because a game shaped like this rarely stays quiet at both ends for long.
Betting Tip: Over 2.5 goals
Put a home side with nothing to fear and an away side with everything to chase on the same pitch, and goals tend to follow. CSKA have already proven in this tie that they can score freely against this opponent, and Maccabi’s only route back into it is to go hunting goals rather than manage the game. That combination points to an open second leg, not a cagey one.
A proper home leg at last
Vasil Levski gives CSKA an actual home crowd for this tie, something neither side really had in the first leg given Maccabi’s ban on hosting UEFA football at home. That matters more than it might sound. CSKA have been the sharper, more clinical side throughout and now add a genuine atmosphere advantage on top of the three-goal cushion. For the fuller picture of how this tie got built, our breakdown of the first leg in Batumi covers how CSKA carved Maccabi open in a stadium and a city neither side really called home.
There’s still something on the line beyond pride. The winner moves into the play-off round, the last hurdle before the league phase proper, so CSKA have every incentive to keep playing on the front foot rather than manage a lead that already looks decisive. Nothing about the first leg suggests Maccabi have the tools to find four unanswered goals in one night, and a repeat of that kind of CSKA performance, not a backs-to-the-wall rearguard job, feels like the bigger risk facing the visitors.
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