- Home form: Universitatea Craiova have won four and drawn one of their last five home games across all competitions
- Recent form: Getafe have won one, drawn two and lost two of their last five matches in all competitions
- Home scoring: Craiova have scored 15 goals in their last five home matches across all competitions
Side that dictates terms in central areas should prevail
Recent form and results
Universitatea Craiova should edge Thursday's UEFA Conference League – League Stage 2026-2027 match against a Getafe side. Filipe Coelho's team have played some terrific soccer at times since the start of the season and their latest batch of results in the Romanian Liga I, a 1-0 away win over a decent CS Corvinul Hunedoara and a 5-0 home victory against a FCSB side that are no slouches, suggests that their form is heading in the right direction.
They travel to Stadionul Ion Oblemenco in good shape after four straight wins in all competitions, although they have been in patchy form in recent weeks with just six wins, three draws and one defeat from their last ten.
Tactics and key player
- Coelho has got them set up to be a vertical team that attacks through the middle, pressing high up the field when out of possession and exploiting the central lanes when on the attack.
- Assad Al Hamlawi has been a handful for the opposition in that central area recently, scoring four times in his last five appearances to get the final third damage done.
- Getafe, who will arrive in Romania off the back of a 1-0 defeat to Real Betis and a 1-0 win over Malaga CF, are a different sort of team altogether.
Getafe could make it tough for Craiova
Pepe Bordalás has got them compact, tough and able to do some damage when they get the ball in the final third. They hunt second balls and move quickly on the break, so this looks like being a game of tug-of-war with Craiova trying to boss the central areas and Getafe trying to frustrate their rhythm and hit on the counter-attack.
The bookmakers have Getafe at a little bit of a price – 2.28 – which looks attractive. But they have scored just 0.50 goals per away game across all competitions while conceding 1.75 on average on their travels, a stat that could be a concern here. It may be just as good as a straight home win for the single bets because Universitatea are in such good form, but the home advantage evens up the odds just enough to suggest we should look for value elsewhere.
The value may lie in the goals market and under 2.5 goals at 1.55 looks a pretty good bet given how these two teams set up to play. The correct score guess is that Craiova should nick it by the odd goal and both teams to score – No at 1.8 looks good because they won't want to give Getafe too many chances to get in behind their backline.
