International football continues and there are eight UEFA EURO qualifiers on Friday. We’ve picked out three tips and boosted them as a treble!
Romelu Lukaku to score (v Austria), Netherlands 5+ corners (v France) & Portugal -2 (v Slovakia)
Austria v Belgium – Romelu Lukaku to score
Belgium and Austria collide at the summit of Group F with EURO qualification almost secured. Focus will be on getting those last three points to confirm their place in Germany
Romelu Lukaku has been through some tough times in recent years struggling to find his form at Chelsea and Manchester United. Away from England, the Belgian striker is one of the more prolific goal scorers on the continent. His stints at Inter and now Roma have provided an incredible record with 52 goals in 78 Serie A games.
His performances with his country are no different, currently leading all of Europe in EURO qualification goals with eight.
Austria may have gotten the results this campaign to almost qualify, but they have not been the most resolute defence. Conceding at home to Moldova, Estonia and Azerbaijan this year alone.
The reverse fixture resulted in these two sides’ only dropped points of the campaign so far in a 1-1 draw where you guessed it, Lukaku scored.
Portugal v Slovakia – Portugal -2
Portugal currently sit at the top of Group J with a literal perfect record. Six games played, six wins and zero goals conceded. Accusations could be made that the quality of opponent in this group is easier than in some others, but Portugal will not care.
Results of 9-0, 3-0 and 4-0 have been recorded on home soil so far this campaign with the rest of Group J struggling to land a glove on A Seleção das Quinas.
Slovakia kept Ronaldo and co down to just one goal in the reverse fixture but we believe that was the outlier to Portugal’s dominance rather than the norm. The last elite level team to play Slovakia was Spain in 2021 where La Roja ran out 5-0 victors.
Netherlands v France – Netherlands 5+ corners
The two giants of group come head-to-head in the second meeting of qualifying. At home, France breezed past The Netherlands 4-0, with goals coming from Griezmann, Upamecano and Mbappe (2). The score line certainly flattered France, as the Deutch had the lion’s share of possession (59%) and just one less shot.
We’re envisaging a match with similar possession stats; thus, we think that the play for this match will be related to Netherlands corners. They managed to record 5 away against France, a feat not to be sniffed at. Equally, they recorded five in their two recent games against Greece and Ireland. They amassed a ridiculous corner count of 19 when they faced Gibraltar at home, however this is not too surprising considering Gibraltar’s measly population of circa 30,000.
To summarise, The Netherlands have amassed 5+ corners in all of their games played so far, and because they are now the one’s hosting France, it seems plausible that they can at least reach the same amount of corners as during their away match.
