Portugal vs Italy

UEFA Nations League – Portugal vs Italy Match Preview



Ronaldo-less Portugal host Italy in what is a crucial group match between two European giants! This is Portugal’s first UEFA Nations League match while Italy started off with a poor draw against Poland at home. A win for either side would put them in a driving seat to make it out of the group so let’s get into some key facts and team news.

Key Facts

Portugal are without their main man Cristiano Ronaldo for this match which is big news as he’s pretty much been their only threat no goal throughout the world cup.

Since winning the Euros in 2016, Portugal haven’t had much luck against League A level opposition only winning one of the 6 matches against teams that are in League A at the Nations League (beat Switzerland).

Portugal are a team based on defending, and it shows up when you look at their over/under stats in the past two major tournaments (Euro 2016 and WC 2018) they played 11 games and had 8 under 2.5 goals games.

Italy are also not a very high scoring side but are based on strong defence. 9 of their last 11 games in all competitions had an under 2.5.

Italy are currently not in good form, they’ve only won 2 of their last 10 games those being against Albania and Saudi Arabia and still they were only narrow wins. Worrying signs

Italy also have been very poor against League A teams. They’ve most recently lost 3-0 to Spain, drew 1-1 with England, lost 3-1 to France, drew 1-1 with Holland and drew 1-1 with Poland.

Team News

Portugal: As already mentioned a few times, Ronaldo is not in the Portuguese team so they’ll be looking for others to contribute. Bernardo Silva has been in incredible form for Man City so he’ll be expected to put in a solid shift for Portugal since his world cup flopped a little. Andre Silva is the main target for goals, he’s Portugal’s 2nd top scorer in the past couple years after Ronaldo so he’ll be expected to get a goal or two. Portugal still mainly have a lot of the players from the world cup like Patricio, Pepe, Carvalho, both Silvas, Guedes etc but there are also some new faces that we may see feature like Gedson Fernandes, Sergio Oliveira, Claudio Ramos, Pedro Mendes who all received their first ever national call ups. Fresh youth and experience is what Portugal will be going with this month. Don’t expect Portugal to go all out attack, but they definitely won’t park the bus. It’s a tactical match really where both teams will get their chances to control the game.

Italy: On Thursday, we saw Mario Balotelli start for Italy for the first time competitively since 2014 but his poor performance has put his place at risk meaning that Belotti is the key candidate to start up front. We could definitely see a few changes in the Italy squad from that disappointing draw against Poland but most main players are all expected to play such as Chiellini, Bonucci, Jorginho, Insigne, Donnarrumma mainly. It’s a strong Italian team on paper but their form recently has not been good. They have a great chance to go and win in Portugal however and if they can do so then maybe they’ll be able to restore some form and confidence.

Betting Tips and Predictions

Well this shapes up to be a tactical battle between two strong defences but struggling attacks. That can only mean one thing, we should be expecting an under in this game. Under 2.5 is priced at 1.50 which doesn’t hold much value therefore we need to search for something different. BTTS – No also doesn’t hold much value at 1.63. Unless you want to make an accumulator these bets are not worth the risk, but they should come through relatively easily. With Ronaldo out for Portugal and them not being good at big games recently just like Italy this could very well be a draw which is priced at 3.10. Neither team are really going to go all out for it let’s be honest and a draw seems like the most likeliest result here. If we were to pick a winner though then Italy will get that edge and Italy’s 0.0 AH at 2.35 is value because if they draw you get your money back anyway, we just don’t see Portugal winning without Ronaldo because they’re too vulnerable just look at the world cup, they were awful when Ronaldo wasn’t clicking.

To summarise we’re willing to give Italy the slight edge in this contest if there was a winner but our pick is a draw. We seriously wouldn’t be surprised if this ended 0-0. It’s a tough game to bet on, it may actually even be best to skip it.

Match Odds (TonyBet)

Portugal Win – 2.25

Draw – 3.10

Italy Win – 3.55

KICK OFF – 10th September 2018 – 7:45pm UK Time