Euro 2024 Tips on Saturday: Back 1.80 best bet in Switzerland v Italy | OneFootball

Euro 2024

Can Swiss maestro Granit Xhaka win a Bundesliga and EUROs double?

It's the opening game of the Round of 16 and Mark Stinchcombe is here to talk about the best bet...

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Switzerland v Italy

This is the first match of the Round of 16 and coincidentally has the lowest forecasted goals at just 2.15 meaning Over 2.5 goals is a big looking 2.9. The average forecasted goals across the other seven games is 2.68, creating a blanket Over 2.5 goals price of 2.02. We know historically that the most competitive goal line in football matches is the 2.5 one, so with this one being set at a measly 1.75, where we will achieve profit with just two goals, you can see why I'm immediately attracted to build a case for getting involved.

Ok so the tournament is only averaging 2.25 goals per-game so far but we know that is heavily driven by round three, where teams were strategically playing for draws to guarantee progression and thus not attacking as regularly as normal, where we saw just 20 goals in 12 games (1.67 per-game). However, I believe a better reflection of the likely amount of goals, is round one and round two average, where we saw 61 goals in 24 games at a rate of 2.54 per-game.

Looking at the teams specifically, Switzerland have actually seen both teams score in all three games, against teams of varying ability from Germany to Scotland. Infact 14 of their last 15 competitive games have seen at least two or more goals (93%). If you look at them in previous knockout rounds at major competitions, there were seven goals as they lost 6-1 v Portugal at the last World Cup, and at EURO 2020 they drew 1-1 with Spain after an epic 3-3 draw with France.

Luciano Spalletti took over an Italy side in transition less than a year ago in August 2023 and is still finding his feet. Reigning European Champions, they failed to qualify once again for the 2022 World Cup, and this side is along way from the Bonucci, Chiellini, Veratti spine that took them to success. After coming back from a goal down against Albania in game one, they were brutally played off the park by Spain, before nearly allowing Croatia to beat them due to trying to play for a point.

Spalletti has been in charge for nine competitive games, and over 1.75 goals has lost in just two of them. One was a 0-0 v Ukraine in the final qualifying game when the Azzurri just needed a point and the aforementioned Spain fixture where could easily have finished in a 2/3-0 defeat.

How does the bet work? The 1.75 is the average of our two bets, half our stake goes on over 2.0 Asian goals (bet void if exactly two goals) and the other half goes on over 1.5 goals. Therefore the only way our bet loses is if there is exactly zero or one goals. At 1.80, I'm more than happy to chance goals in what could be a tight encounter. The average odds for over 1.75 goals across the other games is just 1.41, so I really like this is a positive-EV bet.