The first of Sunday's European Championship matches comes from Group D where England, one of the outright tournament favourites, take on Croatia at Wembley
Group D Betting Update
Shop around for the best prices but as a guide England are the favourites to top this quartet at around 4/11 with Croatia next best at 3/1, Czech Republic 11/1 and Scotland are trading at around 14/1. To make it out of the group Czech Rep are roughly even money and Scotland can be backed at around 5/4.
England
In qualifying for these finals England finished top of their group, 6 points clear of Czech Republic with Kosovo, Bulgaria and Montenegro further back. England won 7 and lost 1 of their qualifiers, scoring 37 goals and conceding 6 and the only blemish on their record was a 2-1 defeat in the Czech Republic. That defeat aside they scored at least 4 goals in each qualifier.
England's World Cup 2022 qualifying campaign has started with home wins over San Marino (5-0) and Poland (2-1) either side of a 2-0 win in Albania
In a couple of recent warm ups England completed 1-0 wins over Austria and Romania.
England's odds to win the tournament are around 11/2, second favourites on most books behind France (9/2)
Croatia
Croatia also finished top of their qualification group although it was far more competitive. They finished 3 points clear of Wales with Slovakia and Hungary, who were third and fourth, subsequently making it through the play offs whilst Azerbaijan were the also rans. Croatia won 5, drew 2 and lost 1 of their qualifiers with the only defeat coming early in the campaign in Hungary (2-1). Croatia scored 17 goals and conceded 7.
World Cup 2022 qualifying started with a 1-0 defeat in Slovenia followed by home wins over Cyprus (1-0) and Malta (3-0)
The most notable recent friendly matches saw Croatia draw 1-1 with Armenia and lose 1-0 to Belgium.
In the outright betting to win the tournament Croatia are trading at around 33/1.
Recent Head to Head
These teams met in the 2018 World Cup semi finals and despite conceding an early goal Croatia levelled things up and found the winner in extra time before going on to lose the final to France (4-2).
Later in 2018 the Nations Cup saw these teams draw 0-0 in Croatia and England won the return 2-1.
The Betting
England are trading at around 13/20 to win the game with the draw at 5/2 and Croatia can be backed at around 42/10
A game of 3 goals or more is priced at 23/20 and it's a similar price for both teams to score.
Note, odds are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
The Verdict:
Since the teams met in the WC semi finals I take the view England have the greater momentum, throw in home advantage and I'm going with an England win. That said Croatia are no mugs, this is the first group match between on paper the 2 strongest sides in the quartet so I'll take my chances that the margin of victory will be exactly 1 goal.
Additional interest comes in the shape of the anytime goalscorer market where Harry Kane is an obvious choice.
Bets: England to win by 1 goal exactly at 2.35/1
Anytime goal scorer Harry Kane at 1.22/1
Note, odds are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
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