The second match in at Euro 2024 on Monday sees one of the leading lights in the continent getting their campaign underway as Group E continues when Belgium set off on their journey to what they hope will result in the title when they go up against Slovakia in Frankfurt.
Slovakia will be looking to navigate their way out of the group stage and perhaps cause a surprise in the knockout stages while Belgium have their sights set a lot higher than that and will be expected to dominate this group.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on ITV1 in the UK with the build-up to the Frankfurt contest beginning at 4.10pm ahead of the kick off which comes along at 5pm.
Belgium
It remains to be seen whether the current crop of Belgium players have more pressure on their shoulders after the perceived golden generation of talent couldn’t bring silverware home to the country and if they do it will be interesting to see how they deal with that. While this squad isn’t lauded as much as the one which finished third in the World Cup six years ago, there is no shortage of talent at the disposal of Dominico Tedesco and certainly enough to go deep in this tournament.
You would say that most of it comes in the offensive part of the pitch, which is something they are not alone in at this tournament, and if that attack plays to the levels it is capable of then they should be able to ease their way into the business end of the competition regardless of his their defence goes. One thing to watch out for will be the goalkeeper situation after Thibault Courtois was left out after a bust up with the coach.
Slovakia
Slovakia are back for a third successive tilt at this tournament and having got out of their group in 2016 they would have been disappointed to fall at the first hurdle three years ago. Their primary aim will be to make it out of the group once again but also to show that they have learned from the experiences of the last two competitions and also that they have improved in that time. They qualified comfortably in what looked like a competitive section behind Portugal which bodes well.
Slovakia lost both of their matches with the Portuguese, which is no shame, but they won seven and drew the other one of the eight games away from Roberto Martinez’s men and that bodes very well for them. They only conceded four goals in those eight matches as well and scored 15 which suggests a team which is going to be nicely balanced. If they can find the right level of goal threat you would expect them to be organised enough to give a good account of themselves here.
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Team News
Belgium will be without Thomas Meunier for this match which means that Timothy Castagne will deputise at right-back. Jan Vertonghen returned to training over the weekend and he is in contention to begin the game.
Slovakia have a doubt over the fitness of Denis Vavro, who will partner Milan Skriniar at the centre of the defence if he is passed fit. They have a fully fit squad to attack this opening match with should he be able to feature.
Betting
This is one of those matches where I am going to keep an eye on the two sides involved because the favourites Belgium have to put a disastrous World Cup campaign behind them and I will be interested to see the approach of Slovakia when you consider that on paper at least this looks like comfortably the toughest assignment in the group stage. I suspect Belgium will win but I’d like to see a convincing performance from them first.
One area where I am expecting Belgium to exploit is their left side where Jeremy Doku could be a real issue for the Slovakia right-back Peter Pekarik and if the veteran defender gets the better of the Manchester City man he would have Leandro Trossard to deal with. Pekarik has been very light of action this season, featuring just five times for Hertha Berlin in the second tier of the Bundesliga and it would be no surprise to me if he struggles. A 37-year-old against a dynamic pacy winger feels like an accident waiting to happen so I’ll take the Slovakia man to commit a couple of fouls in this one.
Tips
Back P.Pekarik – Over 1.5 fouls committed for a 3/10 stake at 2.63 with Bet365
