Euro 2012
2012-06-08 - Russia vs Czech Republic
A Sports Betting Pick by ROzsolt
Football : Euro 2012 Group A
Venue: Stadion Miejski — Wrocław
Friday 8th June – Kickoff time: 20:45 GMT+1
Russia
Russia will meet Czech Republic in their opening match at Euro 2012 for the second time in their history, after a 3-3 draw at Euro 1996 in England. That was both sides first appearance at the European Championships.
Russia approach this year’s competition confident after winning their qualifying group despite a slow start to the campaign that included a 1-0 home loss to Slovakia. Dick Advocaat’s side managed to improve and they eventually beat Ireland in the race for the top spot with 23 points from 10 games.
Alan Dzagoev and Roman Pavlyuchenko were the top scorers with four goals each, but there other quality offensive players in Russia’s squad as well, like Andrey Arshavin or Alexander Kerzhakov.
Since that 1-0 home defeat by Slovakia, Russia are unbeaten in eight competitive games, six wins and two draws and are unbeaten in their last 14 games (including friendly matches) culminating with a 3-0 win over Italy.
Marat Izmailov was the only injury concern coming into the tournament, but goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev is also accusing a knee injury, so we might see Malafeev between the posts if the first won’t recover in time.
Probable Russia line-up :
Anyukov, Igna'vich, Berezutskiy, Zhirkov
Shirokov, Denisov, Zyryanov
Dzagoev, Kerzhakov, Arshavin
Czech Republic
Czech Republic placed second in the qualifying group I, a group dominated by European and World Champions, Spain.
Thirteen points were enough for the Czechs to secure the second spot on Scotland’s expense and eliminated Montenegro 3-0 on aggregate in the play-offs to reach this stage of the competition.
The Czech Republic has a good Euro pedigree, they’ve been present at every European Championship since the 1993 break-up of Czechoslovakia and actually played a final in ’96 that was lost against Germany because of a golden goal scored by Oliver Bierhoff.
With their current squad and form repeating that performance will be almost impossible to accomplish, but who knows. Coach Bilek changed the team formation from 4-4-2 to 4-2-3-1 but with just one up front goals may not come so easily.
That one up front is likely to be Milan Baros if he manages to recover from a minor injury, he was actually the top scorer at Euro 2004 in Portugal with five goals, but he is now 30 and not in the best form of his career.
Probable Czech Republic line-up :
Selassie, Sivok, Kadlec, Rajtoral
Plasil, Jiracek
Rezek, Rosicky, Pilar
Baros
The Betting Verdict
We have Russia here with a domestic league that is constantly improving thanks to the huge investments in players and infrastructure and a Czech league that lost its shine, Sparta Prague and Slavia Prague are no longer providing quality players to the national team, they actually provided none if we take a look at their 23 men squad.
Russia’s national team is built on Zenit St Petersburg’s foundation, there are six players from Spalleti’s team that will be present in Russia’s 11 and four from CSKA Moscow. Zenit comfortably won the domestic title and they also qualified for the knockout stages of the UCL playing an excellent attacking football.
Czech Republic will only use two players from their domestic league, but they do have some big names in their squad such as Petr Cech from Chelsea or playmaker Thomas Rosicky from Arsenal.
It will be difficult for Russia to reach the semis as they did four years ago, but I think they have the quality to progress from this group. I think Russia has more firepower and they play a fast attacking football that will put Czech Republic in difficulty, I don’t expect a big win but Russia should do enough to edge this.
The Pick :
Russia 1-0 Czech Republic
BEST BETTING TIP :
Take Russia to win at 2.25 at BetVictorConfidence: 7/10
Try Russia to win by one goal at 3.50 at Bet365
Confidence: 5/10
