Back
Steffen Schmidt - September 7, 2023
North Macedonia vs Italy
EURO Qualifications
Date: 9 September 2023, Saturday
Kick-off at 19:45 UK / 20:45 CET
Venue: Tose Proeski Arena (Skopje).
Italy will return to their 2024 UEFA European Championship qualifying campaign after featuring in the UEFA Nations League final four in June.
Azzurri came third in the mentioned competition after losing the semifinal tie 2-1 to eventual winners Spain.
They have played only two qualifiers in this campaign, bouncing back from the inaugural loss to England (1-2 at home) by beating Malta 0-2 on the road just three days later (in March).
Since then, Italy replaced their head coach as Roberto Mancini suddenly decided to leave the national team bench and open up a spot for the man who took Napoli to the inaugural Scudetto title in decades, Luciano Spalletti.
Spalletti will lead Italy for the first time on Saturday when the team travel to Skopje for the Matchday No 5 clash against North Macedonia.
This will be a familiar opposition for the Italians who have shockingly suffered a home loss to North Macedonians in the European FIFA World Cup qualifications (playoffs semifinal) in Palermo last March.
The mentioned defeat will no doubts represent an additional motivation for the Italians who are massive favorites to win this anyways.
North Macedonia gave up all hopes of doing something in this very tough group after back-to-back defeats to Ukraine (2-3 at home) and England (7-0 on the road) in June.
North Macedonia shipped ten goals in the last two matches against Ukraine and England. They failed to register a single attempt in the 90 minutes of play away on English soil three months ago.
Azzurri, on the other side, notched four goals in two June clashes against the likes of Spain and the Netherlands in the UEFA Nations League final four tournament. We will back Italy to win by two or more goals at the 2.00 odds. Alternatively, the Over 2.5 goals FT bet looks decent at the 1.80 odds.
