England – Romania

England will meet Romania in Cesena on Friday, with the Young Lions needing a win if they are to keep their hopes of advancing to the European U21 Championship semifinals alive.

England has had great success recently at youth level, and indeed they qualified easily to this tournament from a group which also featured Netherlands. However, England was a tiny bit disappointing in the opening match. They suffered a heartbreaking 1-2 loss against the mighty France, conceding both goals in injury time, but it was probably a deserving loss – as France missed two penalties!

Romania qualified for the European U21 Championship for the first time in over 20 years, from a tough group with Portugal, Bosnia and Wales. Winning that group was definitely surprising (and a bit lucky, as Portugal missed a late penalty), but the Romanians proved their quality in the opening match here at this championship, defeating Croatia with a shocking 4-1 – although the score was a bit too high for what happened on the pitch. Still, Romania played really well.

Bet on England vs. Romania and claim your 100% (100 Eur) freebet at 1XBet now!

Team news & lineups:

Choudhury is suspended for England, otherwise both teams are at full strength.

England: Henderson – Kenny, Tomori, Clarke-Salter, Dasilva – Dowell, Maddison, Foden – Gray, Calvert-Lewin, Barnes

Romania: Radu – Manea, Pascanu, Nedelcearu, Stefan – Cicildau, Baluta – Man, Haci, Coman – Puscas

England must win this game to keep their hopes of advancing alive, and indeed you would expect them to do so. Even without a number of key players like Trent Alexander Arnold, Sancho, Chilwell, Maitland Niles and others (not to mention Alli or Rashford), who were not released from their clubs for a lower level competition like this one, England still has a great squad. In the roster are established Premier League starters like Maddissn, Gray, Calvert-Lewin, Sessegnon, Wan-Bissaka or Abraham, among others.

This generation is one of the best England had in a while, as the English youth won the U20 World Cup in 2017 and reached the semifinals of the U21 European championship the same year (losing via penalties to the eventual winner Germany). Yes, many of the players who achieved those results aren`t with the team anymore, but a fair number of them still are.

Meanwhile, Romania is rather poor player for player. Their best guys are probably keeper Radu (Genoa) and striker Puscas (Palermo). Most of the squad plays in the poor Romanian league, with a few other players plying their trade at below average European clubs.

An indicator of the difference in talent is that Romania’s main defender, Pascanu, plays for Leicester City’s U21 side, never featuring for the senior team. He`ll be marking the likes of Maddison, who is a star for the main side.

However, despite maybe lacking the individual quality required at this level, Romania has a lot of chemistry and plays great as a team, something which we saw in the 4-1 win against Croatia. The atmosphere in the locker room is great and as such, they are a dangerous opponent.

England will definitely take Romania very seriously after what happened in the opening round – both because England absolutely needs a win, and because Romania gained respect by destroying Croatia. This is very important and may well be the deciding factor.

Considering the gap in talent and looking at England’s exceptional results with this generation of players, it`s hard to see them blowing their chances of qualification from the group stage against an inferior opponent. To be quite fair, Romania seems a bit overrated after the result in the opening round, as I don’t think England should be priced above 1.40 here.

My tip will be England to win and cover the -1 asian handicap. Prediction: England – Romania 3-0.

Pick: England (-1 Asian Handicap)
Odds: 1.83 @ 1xBet
Stake: 8
Possible profit: 6.64
Event date: 21 June