Russia and Czech Republic complete the first day of Euro 2012 on Friday, with Group A starting to take shape after this game.
fifa.com
Russia enter the competition looking to emulate a number of strong performances in recent competitions, but in truth up until recently the eastern European nation appear to have lost some of the previous quality. Dick Advocaat’s men overcame the likes of Republic of Ireland to automatically qualify from their qualifying pool, but were less than convincing through the campaign. The likes of Andrei Arshavin, Yuri Zhirkov and Roman Pavlyuchenko were languishing with English club sides, but have all returned back to Russia to get first-team football. The Russians did however put down a marker in their final friendly before the competition, beating Italy 3-0 in an impressive display. Bwin have the Russian side as favourites, giving them odds of 2.05 to start with a win.
Czech Republic finished behind world champions Spain in their qualifying pool and were forced to beat Montenegro in the playoffs to ensure participation at this summer’s competition. The eastern European nation have lost the likes of Jan Koller and Pavel Nedved over recent seasons, and now look to the likes of Tomas Rosicky and Tomas Pekhart to provide attacking inspiration. Despite beating Israel recently in a friendly, they were turned over 2-1 b Hungary in their final warm-up fixture. Bwin have the Czechs as outsiders, giving them odds of 3.60 to get a victory.
This could be quite a close game, with Russia the more attacking of the two sides. Despite this, my Euro 2012 football betting tip is a 1-1 draw, which Bwin has at odds of 6.25.
[bwin event=2509324]
Tags: Andrei Arshavin, Czech Républic, Czech Republic odds, Dick Advocaat, Roman Pavlyuchenko, Russia, Russia odds, Russia vs Czech Republic, Tomas Pekhart, Tomas Rosicky, Yuri Zhirkov
