This is only the hosts third ever European campaign, the first was only six seasons ago, it ended with a first round UEFA Cup defeat and they only avoided relegation that year, by virue of Boavista being involved in match fixing. In 2009-10 ,they lost in qualifying in this competition to an Israeli team and again struggled in the league, there is a pattern evolving here by the way.

Chelsea have served us very well this season, we previewed their trip to Steaua on Matchday 2....These two met last March in the knockout stage of the Europa League, ahead of the second leg I wrote .... "Chelsea completely outplayed Manchester United for the last hour of the match at Old Trafford last week and were unfortunate not to have come away with the win. Rafael Benitez made the tactical changes and Sir Alex didn't react, with his team clearly losing the midfield battle.

Unfortunately Le Havre (see previous post) were unable to hold on to a 2-0 lead last night. Much better news this morning and before lunch, we are 4/4 for subscribers in J-League, with winners at odds of 2.35, 2.28, 2.22 and 2.08 (half ). This was extra pleasing, as there was a free five day trial of the full clubgowi service (circa ten newsletters), offered on the free email newsletter (see box to the right of this post) for the first 25 applicants, which started yesterday.

I have previewed three of tonight's Ligue 2 matches for subscribers (one below) and given stats for a fourth and also sent them notes about almost all of tomorrow morning's J-League fixtures. A massive weekend ahead for us and I am hoping to share one , maybe two more on here over the weekend.

France Ligue 2: ( written 09.30 Friday October 18)

Norway were very disappointing yesterday and so was the injury time equaliser which Denmark condeded, as that cost us a solid profit on the day, as it was we lost half a unit, no damage done, but frustrating.

Norway are way down in 4th place in Group E, but are only two points off second spot and still have matters in their own hands, if they beat third placed Slovenia today and Iceland on Tuesday, they will be second.... simple. Things are often so much easier when they are cut and dry like that, drop points today and they are very likely to be eliminated. Of course, Slovenia have eveything to play for too, but have looked vunerable at home on occasion, like many teams in this group, with the three front contenders for the runner up spot having each lost two of their four home starts.

In addition to the three full match previews for subscribers yesterday, one of which you can read in the previous post ( Earthquakes won 1-0 BTW) , I wrote a few lines about just one other game.....

Rapids did us a big favour with that 5-1 demolition of Seattle Sounders on Saturday, ahead of which I wrote ..."You know that I am a Seattle "fan" and have tipped them up as likely Supporters Shield winners for many weeks and I have been on the money there, but I feel they might lose this evening. They have two games in hand of many teams and they might just be more focused on two big West Coast match ups over the next seven days against Vancouver and Portland.