Finland – Northern Ireland

The rivals will not score more than two goals in Helsinki

On Friday in Helsinki will play two national teams that two rounds before the end of European qualification have lost their chances for one of the top two positions. Finland are seven points behind Denmark and Slovenia, but will have a chance to qualify for the EURO via the knockout stages. Northern Ireland, with an average performance of less than one goal per game, will definitely not move from fifth place, leaving behind only a very weak San Marino team. Actually, only with the national team of the dwarf state the British and scored points in the current selection. Bookmakers have identified the home team as the favorites for the upcoming meeting, offering odds of 1.94 on their victory. Finland did quite well in last year's Nations League. In the quartet with Montenegro, Romania, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Finns scored eight points, which allowed them to take the final second place. Given the composition of the qualifying group, the Finnish national team initially had ambitions to compete for a place at Euro 2024. After losing the first round in Copenhagen, Finland emphasised their ambitions and beat their opponents four times without conceding a goal. The real collapse of Kanerva's team's hopes began in mid-September when they lost to Denmark at home. In October, the Finns also lost to their direct rivals for second place, Kazakhstan and Slovenia. Finland now need to stabilise their game and return to a pragmatic style before the knockout rounds, and this match is the best match for that. Michael O'Neill returned to the Northern Ireland job at the beginning of December last year, having been in charge from 2012 to 2020. This followed the British team's performance in the 2022 Nations League, which saw them narrowly miss out on the D-League, only to be beaten by Cyprus on extra time. In eight rounds of the current European qualification, the British team have lost six times, only beating San Marino twice. Five of the six defeats, including the first meeting with Finland, were recorded with the score 0:1. We bet that in the upcoming match there will be a lot of positional struggle and few goals scored.