Wednesday Football Tips: Shaparenko looks good for a card

Dynamo Kiev v Benfica
Wednesday 17 August, 20:00
Live on BT Sport 2

The eyes of cards' punters should light up when they see the appointment of Felix Zwayer and the German takes charge of this Champions League play-off tie on Wednesday night.

Zwayer has long been one of the highest carders in UEFA competitions and in the last round he produced no fewer than nine.

He's now shown 4+ cards in 26 of his last 31 UEFA club appointments and 5+ in 22 of those matches.

The card tallies for his last 10 read: 9-3-2-7-4-6-7-4-8-5.

Dynamo Kiev certainly look good for cards. They've amassed a whopping 18 in their four qualifiers thus far.

And of the 12 teams to reach this stage, they've committed more fouls per game than all bar one.

Benfica's stats aren't as impressive - then again, that would take some doing. However, they have seen two cards in each of their two games so far in the competition, continuing a trend set last season when they received 20 cards in their 10 UCL matches.

Essentially, I'm happy to put both teams down for over 1.5 cards to form the foundations of a Bet Builder but the real value lies in the player 'shown a card' market.

There are several players at tempting prices but the one which stands out is the 11/4 about Dynamo's central midfielder Mykola Shaparenko.

He was carded in 10 of his 19 starts last season and while it's just one in four so far this term, it's notable that he's committed eight fouls in those contests, a figure topped by only one team-mate.

Shaparenko will be right in the thick of things in this one, being played on neutral territory in Poland, and looks a prime candidate to go into Zwayer's bulging notebook.

Put the three legs together and the Bet Builder pays north of 9/2.

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