Following a month of domestic action across the continent to kickstart the new season, it’s time for the first international break of the campaign. It’s full steam ahead to UEFA Euro 2024 next summer but until then, we have to figure out who will be there. Today, we’ll be taking a look at this week’s qualifier between Kazakhstan and Northern Ireland.
Sweden Form GuideWhile they may have only qualified for one of the last four World Cup finals, Sweden are pretty consistent in Europe, having qualified for the last six editions of the European Championships. They struggle to do a whole lot with that when they get there, but given some of the stars they have within their ranks, we’d say it’s just a matter of time before they explode into life - no pressure.
Sweden felt like they had to make a big statement in response to their 2-0 loss to Austria back in June, and that’s exactly what they did just a matter of days ago. They torched Estonia 5-0 and in truth, it could’ve been a whole lot worse than that for the hosts.
Austria Form GuideThey’ve always been a dangerous kind of opponent, but Austria haven’t quite been able to get over the hump and become a consistent force. The likes of David Alaba have always pushed hard for them to get to that next level but for now, they’re just a ‘middle of the road’ team in Europe, always striving to prove they can get out of the shadow of some of their neighbours.
The Austrians would’ve felt pretty confident after drawing with Belgium before beating Sweden back in June, but all of that good work came undone to kickstart the international break as they only managed a 1-1 draw at home to Moldova.
Match PredictionBoth teams have strong attacking players they can fall back on and neither are afraid to pour forward when they feel the momentum shift in a game. That’s the kind of back and forth affair we’re here for, and with so much on the line, we do feel like over 2.5 goals will be scored in this collision.
