The last game of the three at Euro 2020 on Wednesday sees one of the co-hosts Italy looking to seal their place in the knockout stages when they play host to a Switzerland side who harbour hopes of qualifying themselves.
The Stadio Olimpico was where this tournament started last week and it will continue with the two Group A leading lights going at it in a match where we might see just how strong the title hopes of the home side are.
Where to watch
This final match of the day takes place over on ITV1 with the build-up to the contest beginning at 7.15pm and the game kicking off in Rome at 8pm.
Italy
Sometimes teams who play in the opening match of the tournament can ease their way into proceedings. It might be that Italy are doing that but their opening performance was one of complete class and pure confidence as they brushed aside a Turkey team who were getting talked up a fair bit heading into the competition. Italy got on top of the match early on and rather than rest on their laurels, powered their way to victory.
Italy were defensively strong as we would expect them to be against Turkey, although it should be said they weren’t really tested by a poor Turkish attacking display, but where they really impressed was in the attacking areas where there was a dynamism which isn’t always associated with Italian sides in recent times. They looked like a team who were embracing the occasion. Their fans will just hope they haven’t peaked too early.
Switzerland
I’m not really sure what we could take from Switzerland in their opening match of the tournament. I say that because Wales didn’t really offer anything of note in terms of an idea or style and Switzerland just seemed to take advantage. Even then they couldn’t win the game so you have to think this is going to be an extremely tough assignment for them, even allowing for the fact that they did qualify above Denmark to get into this tournament.
In competitive matches in the last three years, Switzerland do tend to find the back of the net, failing to score just 15% of the time coming into the tournament, but we have to acknowledge that a lot of those outings are against inferior sides whereas this certainly isn’t. That is a bit of a surprise because you never really got the impression that Haris Seferovic was going to pose much of a threat to anyone leading the line against Wales, although the two closest to him are dangerous.
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Team News
Italy boss Roberto Mancini was hoping to have Marco Verratti back for this match but the game is said to come too soon for the PSG midfielder. The Italian boss will be forced into a change with Alessandro Fiorenzi still carrying the injury which saw him come off on Friday. Giovanni Di Lorenzo is the obvious replacement.
Switzerland might think about tweaking a few things to try and protect the defence while still allowing the likes of Breel Embolo and Xherdan Shaqiri to do their thing. Denis Zakaria would provide plenty of energy in the centre of the park.
Betting
Amazingly given their excellent opening performance, Roberto Mancini said his Italy side can only improve which would be a warning to the rest of the teams in this competition if that happens to be true. One thing which is true is they are now undefeated in their last 28 matches and will make it 10 wins in a row should they win this game. I expect them to do that as well. I wasn’t particularly impressed with Switzerland against Wales and don’t really see where they hurt this Italy side.
The last 11 Italy wins have been to nil and while there are some indifferent opponents in that spell there are also the likes of the Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic and Turkey who all carry as much if not more goal threat than the Swiss. The last time they won and conceded was back in 2019 against Armenia and they happened to be 8-0 up at the time. That all makes me think the value here is for Italy to win and to do it to nil.
Tips
Back Italy win to nil for a 3/10 stake at 2.45 with BetVictor
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