Euro 2024 Qualifiers Top Tips: Heavyweights go to battle! French, Croatians and Czechs start qualification

Qualification for Euro 2024 will kick off with heavyweights France taking on the Netherlands and Croatia welcoming Wales. Our footballers are also in the fray and will have to keep an eye on Robert Lewandowski.

Czech Republic vs. Poland

Poland is certainly not an easy team to start with. The Qatar World Cup participant has a new coach, Fernando Santos of Portugal, who won the first ever trophy for the Iberian country with Cristiano Ronaldo and co.

The main star is logically Robert Lewandowski, the Barcelona sharpshooter. But it is also worth mentioning the very fit Piotr Zielinski of Naples and Wojciech Szczeszny of Juventus.

Poland’s defence, on the other hand, is falling apart. The main stoppers Kamil Glik and Jan Bednarek will be unavailable due to injury, Santos cannot count on another stopper Kamil Piatkowski. To make matters worse, Napoli right back Bartosz Bereszynski is also out.

Moreover, the Czech Republic is very strong at home. They have lost only one of their last 13 games and boast an 8-4-1 record. It lost only to Portugal, but earned a draw against Spain or Belgium.

Considering the strength of the Czech players on home soil and the shattered defence of Poland, who will also be playing under a new coach for the first time, I think the Czechs will win.

France vs. Netherlands

The Netherlands played their last match, just like the French at the World Cup, against Argentina. And both European sides fell on penalties, with the difference being that France are in the final, while their opponents today are already in the quarter-finals.

Ronald Koeman has taken over the Netherlands national team since the new year and will not be able to use the services of the pair Frenkie de Jong – Denzel Dumfries that evening. Cody Gakpo, Matthijs de Ligt and Sven Botman may also remain out of the game.

The French certainly don’t have such a problem with the illness and coach Didier Deschamps will have virtually all the key men available.

That’s not the only reason why France are big favourites for this match. The fact that they have won 5 out of the last 6 matches between them also plays into their hands. However, they lost 0:2 in the last meeting, but that was in 2018.

The odds for the home team to win are 1.67, which is a very acceptable value, considering the strength of both teams and the possible injury of the Dutch.

Croatia vs. Wales

Coach Robert Page still has some interesting names available who are grinding the Premier League turf. However, this is no longer the team that could win big games, which was proven at the World Cup in Qatar, where after an opening draw with the USA, they lost both of their remaining two games.

The key match was against Iran, who beat Wales 2-0, and the subsequent defeat against England was only a farewell to Bale, who then said goodbye to his national career.

Now both teams will try to push on to Euro 2024 in competition with Turkey, and Wales are certainly not the favourites. So every point will count.

But the island team has not won 8 matches, only a point for a draw in the aforementioned duel with the USA and last June against Belgium. In the last 4 matches, they have scored one single goal, which was scored by Bale and from a penalty.

Croatians are quite different. At the World Cup in Qatar, they made it to the semi-finals, where they reached the final over Belgium or Brazil. The only team they failed to beat was the victorious Argentina. They then beat Morocco in the battle for third place and won the bronze medal.

In addition, the Croatians are doing great against Wales, having beaten them four times out of 6 duels between them and twice the match ended in a draw. Based on all these facts, the aforementioned odds are still an interesting opportunity.