SWEDEN meet Ukraine on Tuesday night in the last-16 of Euro 2020. Daniel McCulloch (@DMcCulloch1984) shares his favourite fancies.
Sweden vs Ukraine | Tuesday 29th June 2020, 20:00 | BBC
The six knockout games to date have been a lot more exciting than I expected, with Monday’s games particularly enjoyable. There were 14 goals in the two matches on Monday but I anticipate normality resuming in this encounter…with goals likely to be few and far between.
Ukraine’s first game against Netherlands was quite enthralling, with Andriy Shevchenko’s side eventually going down by three goals to two. They followed that up with a 2-1 victory over North Macedonia before a pitiful showing in a 1-0 defeat to Austria.
Sweden’s first couple of matches saw just one goal before they were involved in a thriller with a Poland side who needed a win to progress. Poland’s desperation led to an exciting match but I don’t anticipate a repeat in the last match of this stage of the competition.
While personnel changes with international teams, I do find that often the philosophy doesn’t and in my lifetime Sweden have been quite an obdurate side but have generally struggled to score too many goals in tournament football and have been dependent on a solid defence in order to get through the group stages.
Going back to the 2006 World Cup, just seven of their 21 matches have seen both sides find the net. Just three of these games were knockout matches but not one of those games saw both oblige.
Ukraine have had fewer matches…just 14 in total, but just three of their encounters have seen both score and neither of their two knockout fixtures. That’s a combined 10 of 35 seeing both sides score, so unsurprisingly I am going to back BTTS No at 5/6 with BetVictor.
Elsewhere, I did look at a couple of options in the player cards market but nothing really stood out and I think this bet is excellent value given the importance of the game to these two sides and the lack of goals in their matches at this level over the last eight tournaments.
Best Bets
Sweden vs Ukraine – Both Teams To Score ‘No’ (5/6 BetVictor)
