Friendlies
England returns to Wembley for a friendly against their neighbors Wales. The team impressed in their last match, the strongest for them in quite some time, where they defeated Serbia 5-0 away. Thus, they have practically done almost all their work in the World Cup qualifiers, even though they still have three matches to play. After five wins without conceding a goal, they are at the top of the group and seem unreachable. Among these victories, however, England did have a sobering loss to Senegal in a friendly.
Wales shows stabilization following the appointment of Craig Bellamy. They have only one loss in 11 matches, and that was a 3-4 away defeat to Belgium. Just a month ago, however, they suffered another loss, this time in a friendly, 0-1 to Canada. In the World Cup qualifiers, they are doing reasonably well and continue the battle for a possible qualification, having won their last match 1-0 in Kazakhstan. However, against England, Wales is on a streak of seven consecutive losses, in which they have scored only one goal.
Prediction: under 3.5 goalsEngland can afford to experiment in this friendly. They have depth and options for the lineup, and the pressure has definitely eased after the team's last convincing victory. Wales shows some improvement, but traditionally they struggle against England. Still, their matches are not very high-scoring, and we have to go back to 1966 when there were last more than three goals in a direct encounter between them.
This text is an AI-assisted translation in English. Link to the original source in Bulgarian ➔
