European Under 21 Championship Matches
The Under 21 European Championships tournament gets under way today with two matches taking place.
England get the tournament started when they face Finland in the opening game and this looks to be a straightforward task for the England team. England won 7 of their 8 qualifying games and conceded only one goal. They had a good tournament in 2007 failing agonisingly on penalties against eventual tournament winners Holland.
There is plenty of experience in the England side with James Milner, Lee Cattermole, Gabriel Agbonlahor and Theo Walcott all regular performers in the Premier League.
England are 1/3 (Paddypower) to beat the unfancied Finnish team and look pretty much certainties to start the tournament with a win. There’s not much value on backing England in a straight win, so we think taking them to win to nil-given how well they played defensively in qualifying-at odds of 5/6 (Skybet) looks a better value bet.
Having a bet on the half time/ full time result of England/England 10/11 (Paddypower) is also another alternative to the win that is worth considering.
Finland are appearing in the finals for the first ever time and are a bit of an unknown quantity. They reached the final by beating Austria on away goals and to be honest that doesn’t look good enough form to believe they can trouble England. The are quoted at 10/1 (Bet365) to beat England and that appears to be a pretty fair assessment of their chances.
England should have far too much quality for Finland and we’re predicting a 3-0 win for England 8/1 (Ladbrokes). We’re also tipping Mark Noble 12/1 (Coral) to be first goalscorer.
In the second match today Spain will meet Germany. At full International level this would be a game that could go either way, but Germany have never really excelled at this level and with no real “star players” in n their squad it would be a bit of an upset if they were to beat Spain who have some exceptional players in their side, like Barcelona’s Bojan Krkic, and Diego Capel of Seville.
Germany are 23/10 to get a win and 9/4 (Bet365) to get a draw. While Germany will no doubt be well organised and tactically astute, we believe the Spaniards will have far too much guile for the German defenders and we think Spain look great value at 11/8 (Bet365) to take all three points.
Our prediction is a 2-0 win for Spain 17/2 (Skybet). Our pick to be first goalscorer is Jose Jurado at 14/1 (Bet365)
