Dunfermline Seeks To Bounce Back From Upset In Scottish League Cup

The Scottish League Cup soccer tournament has provided some of the most entertaining competition of the past couple of weeks. With all of the major European Leagues ‘on deck’ for an early August start to their seasons this competition serves as a perfect ‘opening act’. In this preview, we’ll take a look at a Group H fixture between Dunfermline Athletic and East Kilbride.

Not all huge upsets make it to Sportscenter. Although it might not have been much in terms of worldwide significance, Dunfermline’s 1-0 loss to Edinburgh City was a big deal in terms of qualitative disparity. Sure, Dunfermline was a lower tier team in the Scottish Football Championship league last year while Edinburgh City finished third in League Two but it was still a tough setback to swallow. League Two is the lowest professional league in Scotland while the Football Championship is right below the Premier League in terms of quality. What goes around comes around, of course, and Edinburgh City was promptly upset by Dunfermline’s opponent today, East Kilbride.

Dunfermline can still secure a spot in the second round but they can’t afford to slip up here. East Kilbride qualified for the League Cup as champions of the Scottish Lowland Football League–the Lowland League is the fifth tier of the country’s football hierarchy along with the Highland League. It’s essentially a semi-pro league which makes the disparity in this matchup even greater than the one with Edinburgh City. Right now, Dunfermline and St. Mirren are tied for the Group H lead with 6 points but plucky East Kilbride is right behind with 5 points.

Dunfermine is back on their home pitch at East End Park and received a massive wake up call the last time out. They are in preparation mode for the Scottish Championship season but they’ve learned that they just can’t take an opponent lightly and hope to ‘phone it in’. In their last home game, they bludgeoned the League 2 Albion Rovers 6-0. They’ve won five straight at home in League Cup Group play with all of the victories by a margin of two goals or more. Maybe the loss at Edinburgh City has caused an overreaction in the soccer betting odds since the handicap looks extremely reasonable given the Dunfermline home form and the disparity in terms of talent. 8 of the last nine League Cup games at East End Park have seen 3 or more total goals so we’ll also take a shot on the ‘Over’.

BET DUNFERMLINE -1.5, -2 -109 OVER EAST KILBRIDE
BET DUNFERMLINE/EAST KILBRIDE OVER 3 -123

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