Levski Sofia – RB Salzburg Preview – Can Levski shake off the AEK hangover?
Our Levski Sofia vs RB Salzburg betting tips for this Europa League opener come with a health warning: the two clubs arrive from opposite directions entirely. Levski limp into matchday one having been taken apart in a Champions League play-off, while Salzburg strolled through theirs without much fuss. Kick-off at Vivacom Arena, Georgi Asparuhov Stadium is set for 16:45 GMT on Thursday 17 September.
Neither club wanted to be here. Both were Champions League hopefuls a month ago. Both now find themselves in the competition’s second tier, sizing each other up on the opening day of the new league phase, and on paper this one is about as even as they come.
Levski Sofia – RB Salzburg Betting Tips
Betting Tip: RB Salzburg to win
This isn’t a game where one side banks an aggregate cushion and coasts. But how each side qualified still tells you something. Salzburg had a tie to win and won it calmly by four goals without alarm; Levski had a tie to win and lost by exactly the same margin. That gap in composure under pressure is enough to lean Salzburg here, even in a fixture that looks tight on paper.
Betting Tip: Both teams to score
Salzburg’s defensive doubts are real right now, with Lainer and Omoregie both carrying knocks and Chase still working back to full sharpness. Levski, meanwhile, have hardly been shy in front of goal domestically, scoring freely in both league games either side of the AEK exit. Backing both teams to score leans on Levski’s home form holding up against a Salzburg side that isn’t at full defensive strength.
Betting Tip: Over 2.5 goals
Salzburg have made a habit of finding goals late this season, with a cluster of them arriving after the eighty-fifth minute across their opening fixtures. That’s a side that keeps pushing rather than sitting on a lead. Add Levski’s own scoring form at home and this has the shape of a game with goals in both halves. Back the over and check the latest match odds before kick-off, since markets on games like this can move quickly in the final hours.
If you’re only taking one angle from this preview, make it the goals. Both sides have shown they can score, and Salzburg’s habit of finishing strong means this one is unlikely to go quiet once somebody takes the lead.
Two very different summers
Levski’s route into this competition still stings. A goalless first leg at home against AEK Athens gave Sofia genuine belief, but Jović, a brace from Varga and a Marin penalty turned the return leg into a rout, and Levski went out four nil. It’s the kind of scoreline that lingers, and you can read our coverage of that second-leg collapse against AEK for the full picture of how it unravelled.
Domestically, though, Levski have looked nothing like a beaten side. A comfortable win over Lokomotiv Plovdiv and a six-goal demolition of Spartak Varna either side of the AEK ties suggest the players have shrugged the European exit off quickly, building on the away win at Kairat Almaty that got their whole summer campaign moving. That gives this preview its real tension: which Levski shows up, the one thumped by AEK or the one scoring for fun in the league.
Salzburg’s path was tidier. A one nil away win over Mjallby AIF set up a comfortable three nil at home, and the Austrians eased through the play-off without ever looking troubled, as our preview of that tie covered in more depth. It’s the identity Salzburg have built for years under the Red Bull project: high energy, quick to press, comfortable at this level even with a squad that turns over most summers. There is a small piece of shared history here too. These clubs met once before, back in the 2009/10 Europa League, when Salzburg won away in Sofia by a single goal.
Salzburg do arrive with some questions at the back. Stefan Lainer is managing a heel issue and Justin Omoregie a thigh problem, while Anrie Chase has only recently been working his way back from his own injury. None of that is enough to change how we read this game, but it’s context worth knowing before you back anything at the back end of the pitch.
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