Qualifying match for the U19 European tournament that will face the national teams of Norway and Slovakia. This phase is fully disputed (for this group) in Albania, so we are talking about a match in neutral territory. The hosts (Albania) and Ukraine complete the group, so a priori from my point of view between the locals, Ukraine and Norway will play the squares.
For this reason I think the quota has a lot of value and we will see it go down a lot. The Norwegian team comes fifth in the European championship of the category played this summer in Finland, being ahead of countries with more football tradition as England. In addition the Norwegian team had the bad luck of crossing with the two best selections of the tournament (Italy and Portugal) in the group, so in other circumstances I think we would have seen this team go further.
In spite of everything, Norway has undertaken the logical generational renovation of these selections although it maintains some of the players of the habitual block like the forward Botheim (fundamental piece of the equipment of European sub19 of 2018), as well as some other player. In addition the box is completed with two “signings” of level, Tagseth Liverpool player and Rösler holder in the Manchester City team of the Youth League. So it seems that the Norwegian team at least maintains the level.
Slovakia is not necessarily a bad team. Last year they were eliminated in the last round after losing to Kosovo 2-1 in a game that ended with 9, and only lost 1-0 to the all-powerful Portugal of the category. However, almost all Slovak players were at the top of the category by age and have had to leave this team. The closest reference is the Slovakia sub17 team that failed to qualify for the European sub17 this year, eliminated in the second round with 0 points in a group with Switzerland, Portugal and Finland. In this same tournament, Norway led all the phases that played (2 qualifiers and the group stage of the final tournament of 16 teams) and was eliminated in the quarterfinals by locals (England).
A priori it seems clear that Norway should be a favorite for this match, so any fee above 2 seems to me to be worthwhile and I see value in it.
PREDICTION: Under 2.5 goals @ 1.85
