UEFA Nations League: Italy vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina Betting Preview, Odds, Prediction

The Italian national team wants to get back on the glory path, as they feel to be out of the elite group of football powerhouses for a long time. The first step in doing so is the UEFA Nations League, which could provide a boost of morale for the upcoming EURO 2020, which takes place next summer. On the other side, we have Bosnia and Herzegovina, who earned the spot in League A following an excellent campaign in the last edition if the UNL.

Preview

Italy (-380) is a massive favorite, and how couldn’t they be when this crew recorded 11 straight wins so far. Among those victories, two were over B&H, but we’ll talk about them later. Only one win came outside the EURO 2020 qualifiers, and that was against the United States of America, 1-0. 

Now, over the course of the previous 13 matches, the Italians kept their net intact nine times, and they once again became recognizable for their excellent defense, which is the trademark of not only the national team, but all the teams from this country. 

On the other side, they scored twice or more in all the EURO 2020 qualifying games, meaning that their attack is working just fine. By the way, the opponents during this stretch were, B&H, Greece, Finland, Armenia… a pretty solid assembly, we might say. 

Bosnia and Herzegovina (+800) is having mixed results in the recent two years. At first, they would play superbly in the UEFA Nations League last year, but after that, they utterly failed to meet the expectations in the EURO 2020 qualifiers. In the above-mentioned group, they finished fourth, which was a very negative surprise.

Still, Edin Dzeko and the boys have a chance to reach the European Championship through playoffs, which they earned by playing good in the UNL. They will have to beat Northern Ireland first, but that is another story.

When looking at their matches in the qualifiers, the first thing we see is the efficiency. Bosnia and Herzegovina plays exciting games with lots of goals, and only one in the last 10 didn’t saw over 2.5 scores. During this period, they had five losses and a draw along with four wins. However, only one of them came away from home, and that was against Liechtenstein. The other four road trips were all losses in which B&H allowed two or more goals each time.

Head to Head

In two games during these EURO qualifications, Italy scored five goals, allowing one. The first match in Turin saw Bosnia leading at the halftime, but losing 2-1 in the end, while the second in Bosnia ended with Azzuri’s confident 3-0 victory. Napoli’s forward Insigne, was the only player to score in both matches.

Prediction

Italy is a far better team, plus they play at home. Bosnia and Herzegovina is pretty poor once playing away from their soil, and with all due respect, sometimes they know to look like amateurs in those circumstances. Therefore we back up the Italians to win here, but with an Asian handicap, -1.5 goal, with the odds at -115.