Slovakia VS Bosnia-Herzegovina

Slovakia host Bosnia & Herzegovina for this EURO 2024 qualification Group J second round clash at Tehelné pole in Bratislava early Monday morning Beijing time. The other teams in this group are Portugal, who are gigantic favorites to win the group. However, the team that finishes in second place also earns a ticket to the tournament in the summer next year. I see Bosnia as solid favorites to take second place. Slovakia are the third-best team in the group based on my sophisticated in-depth analysis. The hosts FIFA ranking is 54th and this is unarguably too high – I have them in the 64th place in my world power rating that reflects the teams' pure class with the best possible lineup. Bosnia, on the other hand, are in the 56th place which is a little too low.. I have them in the 48th place in the power rating. The visitors crushed Iceland in the opening round 3-0 at home bringing my fans and me an easy winner! They recorded much more in expected goals (xG) than the visitors whose number was just 0.53. Before this Bosnia lost to Romania away from 1-4. Romania were marginally the better team and deserved to win but the final score is still massively misleading and might affect the odds too much here. Bosnia even had 52% ball possession and recorded more total passes, completed passes and dangerous attacks. Both teams recorded 94 attacks and Romania did create more scoring chances. Before this they defeated Montenegro, which is a quite tiny country but are surprisingly dangerous team.. Bosnia had 54% ball possession and recorded more total passes, completed passes and dangerous attacks (59-35), scoring chances and shots on goal. The final score was 1-0 but Bosnia could easily have scored many more goals. 

Before the match against Romania they beat my home country, Finland, 3-2 at home and did deserve the three points. Before the loss to Romania their latest defeat happened about a year ago against Georgia 0-1 but were massively unlucky and would have deserved a win! Slovakia, on the other hand, have not won any of their latest six games! They were pretty lame offensive in the opening round against Luxemburg, a very small country. Slovakia were big favorites in this clash – priced around 1.70 to win, Slovakia recorded 1.09 in xG – the visitors' number was 0.74 but no goals were eventually scored. Before this they played another 0-0 game in a friendly against Chile. They have last beaten a team that is about the same level as Bosnia almost a year ago when they beat Finland 2-0 in a friendly game at a neutral location at Estadio Enrique Roca in a balanced game. Even so, with the big home advantage Slovakia are marginal favorites here but the clever bet is the visitors not to lose (+0.5 goals handicap). Slovakia can improve from the latest games but this potential seems to be given too much emphasis on the betting market..