England begin their quest to go one better than they did in the last European Championship on Sunday night when they open up their Euro 2024 campaign against a potentially dangerous Serbia in Gelsenkirchen.
England lost out in a penalty shootout three years ago and will want to go one better this time around but Serbia are a proud bunch who have the threat to pull off what would go down as a pretty big upset.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on BBC1 in the UK with the extended build-up beginning at 7pm ahead of the 8pm kick off.
Serbia
Serbia went into the World Cup in Qatar as the dark horses for a number of judges but they couldn’t get anything going, not helped by a defence which had no resistance to it whatsoever. They have qualified for this tournament and will now look to show that they are a whole lot better than they offered up 18 months ago. The same question remains though – whether they have enough defensively to repel the better teams.
You get the feeling that if Serbia are going to come out of this group they will need to go down the route of outscoring sides because they do look to be weak at the back. They might struggle to outscore England here but they have two more comfortable opponents to face later in the group so if they can get anything at all from this one then they would be in a favourable position to come out of the section and into the knockout stages.
England
A spot in the knockout stages would represent a decent campaign for Serbia but England have their eyes set on something much bigger and better than that. They will look at this tournament and think that anything other than heading back home with the trophy would be seen as a failure. That will put pressure on them to deliver the goods but at the same time they have gone well enough in recent tournament play to suggest that they can handle that.
It remains to be seen whether England are as good as they were three years ago in terms of team balance. There is no doubt that they are better offensively where the depth of their resources is quite incredible but some defensive injuries have left them looking a little on the light side at the back and that is the part of the pitch where they need to confirm that they have enough to trouble the best sides if they are to go on and win the competition.
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Team News
The big question for Serbia is whether they are going to be brave enough to stick with two strikers against a dangerous England side. If they do then Dusan Vlahovic will partner Aleksandar Mitrovic in attack.
England are expected to be without Luke Shaw who isn’t expected to be fit until later in the competition. Kieran Trippier will begin at left-back while Marc Guehi will partner John Stones. Trent Alexander-Arnold looks to have won the second central midfield spot.
Betting
This has been a pretty high scoring tournament so far and I see no real reason why that is going to change here. I think it is fair to say that both of these sides are eminently better going forward than they are going to be at the back and both are likely to put their fate in the hands of the attacking players rather than shutting up shop and looking to contain. A number of these Serbia players have played in the Premier League or currently do so there won’t be that fear that some have against England.
I’m a little surprised that we can get a 2.5 goal line for this one. I guess that is because England are seen as slow starters to a tournament but with Gareth Southgate ensuring his side are going to be braver this time around and hinting that his team will take the game to the opposition more I expect that trend to come to an end here. You also can’t rule out a dangerous Serbia attack having some joy against this patched up England defence so over 2.5 goals definitely appeals here.
Tips
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