Switzerland vs Albania

This is the second round of the qualification group stage with both teams getting important wins for their standards on Friday. Switzerland won at Slovenia 2-0 while Albania scoring two late goals managed to beat Cyprus at home with 3-1.

 

There is no doubt that the strong favorite for tonight's match is the home side. Switzerland have made a huge progress the last decade participating in the final stage of Euro 2004, World Cup of 2006, Euro 2008 and World Cup of 2010. They have failed to continue this streak last year being in the same group with England and the uprising Montenegro but this time they are determined not to let their chance slip away.

 

The Swiss side is based mostly in its creative midfielders and attackers that produce many chances and score quite easily.

 

Players like Barnetta (though he is suspended for tonight and won't play due to the red card against Slovenia), Shaqiri, Inler, Xhaka, Berhami, Derdiyok,Dzemaili all play in big clubs in Italy or Germany, they are quite talented and still young and well known for their offensive skills. Some recent friendly results the past few months verify that, they have beaten Germany 5-3 a couple of weeks before Euro 2012 started and less than a month ago they won 4-2 at Croatia.

 

Albania on the other side is not so famous for their defense at all, their mostly known international players that play abroad in bigger clubs are also midfielders and attackers (Cana, Bogdani and Salihi being the most famous ones), while in the defense there are not so experiences since all their defenders either play in their national league or in mediocre clubs of Europe.

 

Switzerland has shown in the past when facing not so strong teams that is quite easy for them to concede a goal since they don't pay so much attention when it comes to keeping a clean sheet but they'd rather attack and score as many goals as possible. Sometimes they were punished for that tactic but still they dont seem to have changed it. Tonight it will be a bit awkward that 5 Swiss players will be forced to face the country of their origin so don't be surprised if quite a few goals won't be celebrated but the ones that will score them.

 

Odds for 3 or more goals to be scored are quite high with both teams having high potential to hit the net so I see high value on this bet.

 

Good Luck!