The qualifying competition for Euro 2024 begins on Thursday when three of the 10 groups start out on their journey to attempt to make it through to the tournament which takes place in Germany in around 15 months.
There are some big nations involved on the opening night on Thursday and they include Italy and England who meet in an immediate repeat of the last final of the tournament. Other appealing teams on show include Denmark, Portugal and Finland.
Group C
Two matches take place from Group C with Ukraine having to wait until the weekend before they get started. It is in this group that the Euro 2020 final repeat takes place when Italy welcome England to Naples. The other match in this group sees an underrated North Macedonia side looking to get off to a good start in what looks to be the toughest group on paper. They play host to a Malta side they will know they have to beat.
Group H
All six sides are on show in Group H on Thursday and it is actually in this group where the action begins with the early kick off seeing Kazakhstan looking to make the most of home advantage when they play host to a Slovenia side who will be looking to make progress. Northern Ireland begin another campaign under Michael O’Neill and they will be expected to dominate in a trip to San Marino while elsewhere in this group there is a battle between two Scandinavian sides when Denmark take on Finland.
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Group J
The other group on show on Thursday evening comes in Group J where the 2016 champions Portugal will look to begin their qualifying campaign in style. They begin life under Roberto Martinez when they host lowly Liechtenstein. The race for second place looks to be between Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iceland and Slovakia and the first two of those meet on Thursday while Slovakia play host to an improving Luxembourg side.
Betting
It is a pretty long week of qualifying so I’m not going to go too mad to begin with. I’ll take just the one bet which comes in the form of North Macedonia who I expect to do a bit of a job on Malta. North Macedonia qualified for the last Euros where they gave a decent account of themselves and they were a win away from the World Cup after they shocked Italy before losing to Portugal. They didn’t have the best Nations League campaign but they remain a level above Malta.
Malta were twice beaten by Estonia in the Nations League which is kind of a sign of where they are right now and away in Skopje is a tough ask for bigger and better sides let alone weaker ones like Malta. I think this match is all about North Macedonia but with a number of their players playing in the better leagues in Europe and two men up top who score goals I expect the home side to open up with a comfortable win here.
Tips
Back North Macedonia (-1.25AH) to beat Malta for a 3/10 stake at 1.95 with Bet365
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