Italy and Netherland will both be looking to out their disappointing goalless draws behind them when they lock horns in the UEFA Nations League this Wednesday at the Gewiss Stadium in Bergamo.
Italy are holding onto the lead in a very tight Nations League Group A1 by the skins of their teeth after picking up a win and a couple of draws in their 3 matches. The two draws came at home to Bosnia and at Poland at the weekend in a game they dominated for the most part, created more chances but were just not clinical enough to get the win.
Putting that aside, Italy’s overall performances have been quite impressive. They are unbeaten in their last 17 games, stretching back to September 2018. They are even more devastating when playing on home soil where they have won six of their last seven games.
They beat Netherlands 1-0 in Amsterdam in the reverse fixture in September last year with Nicolo Barella scoring the only goal at the stroke of halftime and Mancini will be looking for a similar outcome to shore their lead at the top of the group.
Coach Frank De Boer replaced Ronald Koeman has had a less than impressive start in the job. He is still searching for his first win after kicking off with a 1-0 home loss to Mexico in an international friendly and then followed that up with a stinker in Zenica in their third group game as Bosnia and Herzegovina completely neutralized his side to hold out for a goalless draw at the weekend.
There is genuine concern growing among the Dutch faithful. They are now winless in their last 3 matches and even more worryingly, failed to score in any of these matches. For a team that is traditionally famed for its attacking brand of football and with the wealth of talent they have in the current squad, this is quite jaw-dropping.
Luckily for them, they are still second in the group, just one point behind Italy in the group. This is, therefore, a huge match for them with the outcome having major repercussions in the trajectory of the standings in the group.
Ordinarily, this would have been an exciting matchup pitting two of Europe’s football giants battling for the top spot in the group. The reality, however, is likely to be very different. It is going to be a tough, physical encounter with few goal-scoring opportunities. Both teams have struggled to find the net in their group games. They are both coming off goalless stalemates against less fancied opponents. We expect a tight encounter particularly to start the game and we are backing First Half Under 1.5 goals @1.35 with Betway as our first betting tip.
There’s so much riding on this game. Whoever wins it will basically get the edge in the battle for the top spot in the group. We, therefore, expect a fiercely competitive and physical game here and that makes us turn to the bookings market. Betway betting app have priced Over 3.5 bookings @ 1.52 and we believe there’s value in backing this as our final tip for the game.
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