Topic: ⚽ UEFA Euro 2024 in Germany ⚽ - Qualifiers - page 37. (Read 18910 times)

The problem for Wales is that their last match is against Turkey. So Croatia has a higher chance of qualifying to the main tournament. For Croatia, the remaining matches are against Latvia and Armenia. But who knows? Anything can happen. For now, only Turkey is guaranteed of a slot in the main tournament. It is still possible for Wales to qualify, only if they can defeat Turkey. Given the sort of form Turkey is in right now, I believe that it is an almost impossible task. Anyway, the picture will be clear by 21st November.

I'm really interested to see how Wales will do in Armenia. Armenia won 4-2 in Wales, and if they manage to do so again it will mean a great deal for Croatia's direct qualification.
Wales's got everything in their own hands for now - but they also have to win against Turkey (the group's leader) in the last round.

I still can't believe we've lost 2 games in a row. I don't recall when it happened to us in qualifiers. I just hope there won't be some surprises in Latvia.

The weird thing is that Italy was the last champions, and they did amazing at nations league too, and yet they missed out the world cup in the middle of it. That alone makes people question how good they really are, at one point when you look at those, you think they are great, but then you look at the world cup fiasco and you think they are not good.

We can't really say if they are going to be great or not, we can just assume how they are going to be, but we can't really predict anything. They are the most volatile thing I have seen right behind Bitcoin itself, they may end up beating France 3-0 and I wouldn't be shocked, and they may end up losing points to Montenegro and I wouldn't be shocked about that neither.

These sort of upsets can be expected. Italy is still in the rebuilding phase. They are no longer the team that we know from the 1990s and early 2000s. Younger players are not coming through the ranks and promising players such as Mario Balotelli have suddenly vanished from the international scene all of a sudden. They failed to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and even now the qualification for 2026 World Cup is not guaranteed. At this point, there is not much they can do. They are undergoing a natural decline, similar to the case with Germany and Netherlands.

I can agree with that. Brazil is another example for this. They also prefer Brazilian coaches. No matter from what nationality they choose their coaches the most important thing to bring success to the team. Italy haven't been able to meet the expectations until this point. That elimination in the World Cup qualifiers was really dramatic as well.

Now they are still in this for Euro 2024 and I assume they would do their best to make it here this time. Spalletti has a big responsibility now.

I think that Italy will definitely win this game as the amount of difference in quality between the two teams is enormous and I think that time when they drew against North Macedonia was a big underestimating of the opponent by Italy,something which most likely will not happen at all during this round.

Finally in this last week starting from Wednesday and to I think the upcoming next Wednesday we will learn the finalists and participants of the Euro 2024,it looks like this is going to be a beautiful Euro with a couple of new teams like Albania for example which is only the second time that will be participating (note how sure I am of this,simply because they are playing Faroe Island at home in the last game and they just need a win to qualify).

But Italy are the current European champions 
By the way, I think that the Italy - North Macedonia game will be the central game in this entire round. It’s funny, but this confrontation has already become fundamental since North Macedonia did not allow Italy to the 2022 World Cup and played a draw in the first round of qualifying for Euro 2024. I hope Italy takes this as something “personal” and wins big (I want to bet with a handicap).

That is what North Macedonia is hoping for, people to just look at what's going on on paper Italy has some great memories of North Macedonia! It was against all expectations when North Macedonia kicked Italy out of the World Cup play-offs in March 2022 and despite these huge differences on paper, the game was lost. I recall that Italy had an insane number of corners and yet it was the weaker team on paper that won the game. I think this time Italy will pay more attention to not making any mistakes twice.

Italy on paper is quite strong compared to North Macedonia, so I think Italy will win and will occupy second place in the Group C table.
If Italy wins as I predict, then Italy's determination to qualify to accompany England will occur in the 10th match against Ukraine at BayArena. In the 10th match against Ukraine, Italy's away match will be exciting.

Currently Italy is still not at its best. The Italian national team is still not a big force in European football. This is because there are many problems they are facing. I don't know what kind of problems happened to them, but in several international tournaments or qualifying rounds I saw that Italy was no longer the favorite team.

In Group C, the end is approaching for the national teams of Italy and Ukraine. Italy will play North Macedonia and Ukraine will play Italy in the final match. If we evaluate objectively, then Italy is stronger and they have more chances to reach the playoffs, but they already lost points in the match with Macedonia, but that was away, in the home match I think the result will be completely different, especially since they are very I need this victory.

The performance of Italy has not been really outstanding, to be honest. So whatever they do, they will have to do it carefully. And whoever they choose will have to do a really good job. Because otherwise, we know what is going to happen. Italy is a team that has been facing a lot of problems in recent times. Now they are trying to improve. To be honest, improvement is still not visible to a lot of people. I am not saying that they are not improving. But to improve at a level where they can actually have a dominating performance in big stages is yet to be done in my opinion.

Regards

Duke

Italy is really conservative when it comes to choosing managers for themselves. They have always preferred Italian managers so far just as they have done with Spalletti last. Mancini could have kept his job if they didn't get a shocking result against North Macedonia. Now there is another psychological war for Spalletti this time to move North Macedonia out of their way. 

I hope that Spalletti will be victorious unlike Mancini. I'm just hesitant about Italy after seeing their recent performances (even the one against Malta).

This team actually have a bigger capacity than this. Spalletti needs to have a good chemistry with the players.

Well.. Goran Pandev is no longer playing for North Macedonia, so I am not expecting much from them. But there is no room for compacency from Italy. They are in a very weak position. As of now, Ukraine is 3 points ahead of Italy in the points table, but at the same time they have played one more match when compared to their rivals. Ukraine has only one remaining match, against Italy. And this match will be more like a knockout, in case there are no upsets during the match between Italy and North Macedonia on 17th November.

Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup twice in 2018 because they lost to Sweden and in 2022 because of the defeat against North Macedonia.
But from the failures of 2018 and 2022 it should be lesson for Italy that in the next World Cup, they must recover they must be able to take revenge for these two failures and try their best to survive until they are close to the final.

Luciano Spalletti, who is the new coach replacing Roberto Mancini, has prepared everything and he believes he can take Italy further in the next World Cup.
And from what Italy has shown while with Spalletti, there is big possibility that his hopes can actually be achieved.
Meanwhile, there are still two matches remaining for the Euro qualifiers and Italy is in 3rd place in group C, which means there is still big possibility that they will qualify for the real tournament later.

Another national break is nearly upon us. I think these times are more difficult for betting. Because I believe that it is easier to analyze teams and make the right choices normally. But when it comes to national teams it is like the chance of seeing surprises increases even more. This happens even in qualifiers for one of the most important tournaments in this sport.

It looks like most people will be eyeing the Italy - North Macedonia match as there is a really exciting situation for Italy now. They need to win this match to get much closer to Euro 2024. We will see whether we would witness another upset by North Macedonia side.

In 3 days we will have a very important game, I'm talking about the following game:

Kosovo - Israel

This is a very important game for both teams, because the scenario seen in the group in which these two teams are, is a very bad scenario. Romania is in first place with 16 points, in second place is Switzerland with 15 points. while Israel has 11 points, but ten only 6 games, while Romania has played 8 games, Switzerland has played 7 games. This means that if Isreal wins in this Sunday's game, they would have 14 points, their opponent, Kosovo has done very badly in the last qualifying games when compared to Israel, we just need to see that Kosovo in the last 5 games had only 1 victory, had 2 defeats and 2 draws, scored only 8 goals and conceded 8 goals. These are data that could make Israel calmer, but unfortunately the timing of this game was the worst possible for Israel, which is at war.

And as if that wasn't already very devastating, they are not an over-goal team in this group, just look at the fact that they only scored 7 goals in 6 games, although they conceded few goals, their opponent also conceded few goals, which would mean that this game ends in a draw, and a draw in this game could hurt Israel a lot, on the other hand, Kosovo will also fight to win this game, because they have a game to spare and a victory in the game against Israel would make them If they stayed with 10 points and with that they would still have hopes of moving on to another stage, while a defeat in this game against Israel would be the end for them.

The bookmakers are giving very high odds for both teams, but Kosovo comes as the favorite in this game, although in the last 5 games Israel had lost just 1 game and has had 4 consecutive games without losing, they are going through bad times In their country, this is probably one of the reasons why bookmakers see Kosovo as the favorite in this game. Maybe betting on the under goal market is a good option

I wonder if this has been the first time ever that a prevailing Euro champion did not make it through the qualification in the subsequent World Cup. But all of this is history, though as I mentioned still gives the game a different touch than I thought, but it also means that Italy won't run into the same issues again and perhaps underestimate what North Macedonia is able to play. I think they will qualify for the Euro.

To be fair that was a big news in world of football because Italy was the euro champions that failed to go to world cup just the next year, that was a very very weird situation and nobody expected to see that. Some other year that made sense but we are talking about a situation where the euro winner end up not being on the follow up years world cup, that's a rare occasion and probably happens very very rarely.

So, it was definitely a big news but they are looking a little better this time around and I am sensing that they are going to fight very hard and get that win so that they could go to euro again. Doesn't mean they will win it again, France still looks like the best team but Italy should be at least there to give it a try.

Now I was shocked as I confess I didn't remember that last time it was North Macedonia which destroyed the Italian dream to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar. I didn't have that info on my radar anymore, but honestly this makes these games for Italy even more exciting or stressful. There is also some intrinsic incentive for North Macedonia to again send Italy home and destroy their dream. Not out of evil intentions, but beating Italy when there is something on the line is always worth the effort for the smaller football nations. Ok now this is getting interesting.