Lithuania – Serbia

The favorites are anticipated to secure a decisive victory, thereby affirming their initial status as the most likely to win

The first round in Group G of the qualifying tournament for UEFA EURO 2024 ended approximately as experts and bookmakers expected before the start of qualification. Hungary and Serbia are located in the zone of access to the main stage of the continental championship, Montenegro balances between the leaders and outsiders, and Lithuania and Bulgaria are at the bottom of the standings without a single victory. The first meeting between the Lithuanian and Serbian teams took place in the third decade of March in Belgrade. Despite the overwhelming advantage of Stojkovic's team, the hosts won with a rather modest score of 2-0. Tadic and Vlahovic scored one goal each. Before the second meeting of the rivals in the current qualifying tournament, the Serbs are again considered favorites by bookmakers with odds of 1.28 on a win. Lithuania is one of the worst teams in Europe. Now the national team of this country occupies 144th place in the FIFA ranking, being the seventh from the bottom in terms of strength of the team from the UEFA zone. Since the beginning of 2021, the Lithuanians have had one victory in official meetings, when Bulgaria came to Vilnius. At the end of last year's Nations League, the Lithuanian national team crashed out of League C with a bang, having managed to pick up one point in six games against the Faroe Islands, Luxembourg and Turkey. The Lithuanians lost both away games in the current qualifying tournament, but managed to pick up one point each at home. On Thursday, Lithuania snatched a 2-2 draw with Montenegro on 90+4 minutes, but it will be extremely difficult to pull off a similar "trick" against the stronger Balkan side. Serbia approached the current qualifying campaign in a maximally motivated state. The team performed below expectations in Qatar, failing to get out of the group with Cameroon, Brazil and Switzerland. The decision to continue working with Stojkovic was influenced by the confident performance of the Serbian squad before the start of the World Cup. In the Nations League, the Serbian team lost only five points out of a possible eighteen in the company of Sweden, Slovenia and Norway, which allowed them to take the first place. The Serbs started their qualification for the World Cup 2024 with two wins, but then stalled, failing to beat Bulgaria and losing at home to Hungary. The match in Kaunas is a perfect opportunity to take out all their football anger on a weaker opponent.