Austria take on the visitors Azerbaijan in the round 1 match of UEFA Euro 2024 qualification. The match will be played on Friday, February 24th at TGW Arena (Linz).
In this qualifying group, the Austrians will surely have a fight with the Swedes for second place. Since the top spot should remain with the Belgians, the Austrians must wage a tough battle with the Scandinavians for the second ticket. And in this case, of course, there should be no talk of losing points to Azerbaijan or Estonia, who are also present in this group. Currently, the Austrians cannot be called very strong mid-level players, and in this match, I am more inclined to think that Azerbaijan is not at all strong. On their home field, the Austrians simply must begin this qualification with a confident victory. In the qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup, the Austrians reached the playoff round, but the Welsh narrowly defeated the Alpine team 2-1 in that match. Now, the Austrian national team must show itself in the new qualifying cycle no worse than in the previous one.
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Azerbaijan have never been a particularly strong force in various qualifying cycles, but currently, the team is degrading completely. They failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup, earning only one tournament point in 8 matches, and they could not even do anything against the Luxembourg national team. In the upcoming qualifying campaign, the Azerbaijani team may only fight with Estonia to avoid being in last place in the group. More ambitious plans are unlikely to be realized by the representatives of the Caucasus. Azerbaijan manages to avoid major defeats, but they often lose by 2-3 goals. Therefore, it is unlikely that they will be able to achieve any result in an away game against a strong opponent.
The odds for a clean victory for the Austrians are too low, and there is nothing surprising about it since the Azerbaijanis do not impress at all and do not inspire confidence in their game and recent results. Therefore, I will focus on a fairly classic bet - a negative handicap on the favorite. Specifically, a handicap (-1.5) on the Austrians. A victory on class with a score like 2-0 in favor of the hosts looks quite realistic here.
Prediction for the match: Austria to win with -1.5 handicap.
