Serbia – England

The leaders of Group K will have a productive second half of their face-to-face meeting.

One of the central matches of the current matchday of the World Cup 2026 qualifiers will take place at the "Marakana" stadium in Belgrade. Serbia and England have not conceded a single goal between them in the seven matches played during the qualifying round. The English team has scored eight times in their four matches, while the Serbians have found the net four times in their three games. This kind of pragmatism is evaluated differently in the opposing countries. In England, they are so tired of it that they were waiting for the arrival of the dwarf Andorra in Birmingham to see the outsider being crushed by the "Three Lions." However, it didn't happen again; the star-studded English players only switched from a quick step to some running by the middle of the first half. The Serbian national team prepared to host the English team in Riga, where they managed to beat Latvia with some difficulty. The upcoming match will be the second for the opponents since the summer of 2024, when Serbia and England faced off in the first round of the EURO group stage. At that time, the spectators witnessed one of the dullest matches of the continental championship. It ended with a win for the British team, who scored their only goal through Bellingham in the 12th minute. Will there be a heavily defensive playing style in the match with slightly less responsibility? The bookmakers have made the guests the favourites for the upcoming meeting, offering a coefficient of 1.77 for their victory. Serbia did not advance from the group in that mentioned EURO. However, the Slavic squad achieved success in the Nations League, finishing second in their League B group, and in the subsequent playoff against Austria, they earned the right to compete in the strongest division of the tournament. The qualifying campaign for the World Cup started for Serbia with a difficult draw in Albania—0:0. In the second round, the Serbians smashed Andorra 3:0, and in their first match of September, they scored an early goal in Latvia and lazily maintained the winning result—1:0—throughout the match. Thomas Tuchel has yet to bring any expected brilliance to the England national team’s play. The "Three Lions" have shown steady results, as evidenced by four victories with a total score of 8:0, but the opponents were Albania, Latvia, and Andorra (twice). In the second half of the upcoming match against Serbia, at least one team will definitely not be satisfied with the result. A minimum of one goal scored in the second 45 minutes will be a logical outcome.