England needs to beat the Czech Republic today and secure the top spot in Group D. Otherwise, their Round of 16 opponent might be tougher than desired. Overall, England didn’t amaze anyone in the opening two matches, playing pale and without any creativity whatsoever. Meanwhile, the situation is different with the Czechs, who are sitting first in the group due to better goal differences. This unit surpassed the expectations, and Patrik Schick became arguably the biggest star of the entire tournament.
Preview
Czech Republic (+750) are massive underdogs, and the fact that they suffered a painful loss the last time they played here at Wembley probably had some influence on such long odds. We will mention more about that in the “head to head” section of this article.
As said, Schick leads the way here, but we need to stress out that his goals came as a product of the entire team’s hard work. The Czech Republic doesn’t have some big stars, but apparently, Jaroslav Šilhavý made a cohesive and resilient group.
The Czechs’ games are not that appealing because they compensate for the lack of individual quality with high adaptability to the rival’s style of play and tough defense.
England (-200) comes into this match with one scored goal in 180 minutes, which is pretty humiliating for one title candidate. Their defense was perfect, to be honest, but you need to net goals in order to triumph and win trophies. And that is something where the Three Lions struggled.
Up until the match against Scotland, England had seven wins in a row, in all but one with clean sheets. But the most recent four games saw them slowing down offensively, scoring three goals in total.
The biggest problem for Gareth Southgate is the fact that he doesn’t have a proper playmaker in the team, unlike three years ago in Russia when Dele Alli orchestrated the midfield.
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Each one of the Czech players will be ready for the game.
Southgate won’t have Ben Chilwell and Mason Mount at his disposal, because these two guys had contact with Billy Gilmour, who turned out to have the COVID-19 virus.
Head to Head Games
The Czech Republic and England met in the qualifiers for the EURO 2020. The Three Lions rolled over their rivals in London, beating them 5-0 in March 2019. Raheem Sterling scored a hat-trick in that one, Harry Kane added one goal from the penalty, and Kalas scored an own goal.
The result in the rematch at Sinobo Stadium in Prague was 2-1 for the Czechs, who got their revenge. Kane again netted from the penalty after five minutes of play, while Brabec and Ondrasek flipped the result.
Prediction
England needs to win here. They simply have to if they want to stay in contention for winning the EURO 2020 title. This game is not only about three points but about momentum for the knockout stage and the positive atmosphere in the locker room. The odds on their triumph are not that high, but we are more than confident that the Three Lions will show up in this event and deliver a good performance, winning by at least a two-goal margin.
Pick: England wins +180
Nikola Velickovic is a sports journalist who loves to write and read on all sports. Nikola contributes both news updates and functions as a sports breaking news writer at WagerBop.
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