Luxembourg – Northern Ireland

Luxembourg are underestimated against the group leader

On Monday, 18 November, Luxembourg will take on Northern Ireland in Division C of the Nations League. The hosts will not rise above last place in their quartet, but their motivation remains—they need to beat the worst teams from other groups to avoid falling into the D division. Northern Ireland's task is more interesting—a draw will guarantee first place, promotion, and, in the long term, the World Cup qualifying matches. The Northern Ireland national team is one of the discoveries of the tournament. The team has significantly renewed itself, started to play in an attacking style and went the distance without failures. In the last match the British easily beat Belarus. There was a total advantage of the hosts. The score 2:0 is a fair outcome of the meeting. Before that, the team lost only away in Bulgaria. Progress of the national team is associated with young players in the midfield line: Spencer, Charles, McCann and the main star Bradley - all under 23 years old. At the number ten position is 21-year-old Belgian Liège player Price. There are very few veterans left in the line-up. Luxembourg, on the other hand, is one of the major disappointments. The national team, which has taken the path of naturalisation of players, has made significant progress in recent years, but their performance in the Nations League was a failure: two points, no wins, they looked even weaker than Belarusians. Interestingly, the team has been managed by Laurent Jans for twelve years. All the great successes in qualifying tournaments are associated with him, but it is not excluded that such a failure will lead to his resignation. True, in the last match against Bulgaria, the result did not correspond at all to the quality of play. The Luxembourg national team created almost 2 xG chances - the realisation was a failure, although the opponent was worse, if we compare the number of dangerous situations at the goal. So Luxembourg is not a hopeless outsider. Almost all of Luxembourg's players play in strong European championships and even top leagues. For example, two midfielders play for Benfica, the squad can not be called age. Bookmakers put the odds on Luxembourg more than 4.00. You can argue with such odds. The national team played a good quality match against Bulgaria and will hardly want to go to the worst division without complaint. An important factor is that the visitors will be satisfied with a draw. That is, Northern Ireland will not risk the entire tournament for the sake of one localised victory. At stake are potential knockout games to qualify for the World Cup - a historic chance for the Brits. Luxembourg easily lost 0-2 in the first round, but the home advantage still had an impact - the game was decided by the 17th minute.