Ukraine – Slovakia

Ukraine hosts Slovakia in the first match of Group C in the Euro 2016 qualifiers. The game is very important for the second place because Spain looks like the “sure” winner in this Group. Match will be played in Kiev and for sure the Ukraineans will try to give the people something to cheer about with the situation in the country bad at the moment.

Ukraine`s team looks very good at the moment. From the last 16 matches they won 13 and lost only to France (0-3) in the World Cup playoffs. At home they have not lost since 2012. They played a friendly vs. Moldova 5 days ago and only won 1-0 at home, not the best performance but it was just a friendly. Ukraine for sure must be the 2nd favorite in this group and if the team will replicate the performances from the last 2 years than this is a very dangerous team with great chemistry and cohesiveness.

Ukraine lineup: Pyatov – Fedetsky, Rakitsky, Kucher, Shevchuk – Stepanenko, Rotan – Yarmolenko, Shakov, Gusev – Zozulya.

Slovakia beat Malta 5 days ago in a friendly, 1-0, poor performance but again … it was only a friendly. Slovakia had a horrible World Cup qual. campaign winning just 13 points in 10 matches in an easy group but improved a little lately and won 4 of the last 6 matches (all friendlies) but also made a shameful draw with Gibraltar in this timespan. Star of the team is of course Hamsik for Napoli and Slovakia will look for him to make the difference.

Slovakia lineup: Kozacik – Pekarik, Gyomber, Durica, Hubocan – Pecovsky, Kiss – Weiss, Hamsik, Stoch – Nemec.

Slovakia has some good players but Ukraine is the much more cohesive and organized side and at home they looked unbeatable in the last 2 years. I don`t think the visitors are strong enough to stop the amazing run of results for Ukraine and I think the home team will get a good, solid home win here. They will put pressure on Slovakia and capitalize on their good attacking game, also I think they can contain the poor strikers of Slovakia. Ukraine has kept a clean sheet in 10 of the last 12 matches! If Hamsik or Weiss don`t come up with something, Slovakia will probably go scoreless, so I will take a risky bet here and tip Ukraine to win to nil – the odds are worth it. Correct score prediction: Ukraine – Slovakia 2-0.

Pick: Ukraine to win to nil
Odds: 2.40 @ Bet365
Stake: 7
Possible profit: 9.8
Event date: 8 September