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Steffen Schmidt - May 31, 2021
Ukraine vs Northern Ireland
International Friendlies,
Thursday, 3 June 2021
Kick-off 19:00 UK/ 20:00 CET
Venue: Dnipro Arena.
Ukraine will be looking to end a dismal run of seven straight games without a win on Thursday when they host Northern Ireland in a friendly ahead of the upcoming EURO opener against the Netherlands.
Ukraine opened the 2022 World Cup qualifying campaign with a 1-1 draw against the reigning champions France away in Paris.
However, they completely ruined such a positive start with a pair of another 1-1 draws to the likes of Finland and Kazakhstan on the home soil.
Andriy Shevchenko’s men have thus put their World Cup qualification in jeopardize. Nevertheless, this summer they will shift focus on the EURO 2020 success.
Ukraine will try and boost up the much-needed confidence with wins in friendlies against Northern Ireland and Cyprus in the next four days.
The fact they are winless in seven subsequent games (including the recent friendly against Bahrain when substitute Viktor Tsygankov only prevented a defeat with a stoppage-time equalizer) says enough about their current form.
Moving forward, Ukraine have also lost the League A status in the UEFA Nations League by finishing the group with Spain, Germany, and Switzerland at the rock bottom of the standings despite beating the Spaniards on the home soil along the way.
Northern Ireland failed to qualify for the European Championship after losing 1-2 to Slovakia in extra-time of the play-offs final two years ago.
They failed to find the back of the net in the opening two World Cup Qualification affairs against Italy (a 2-0 loss on the road) and Bulgaria (a 0-0 draw at home).
Northern Ireland were in action on Sunday when they bagged three goals in an easy clean-sheet win against minnows Malta. Looking at both teams’ recent form and their head to head record, the Under 2.5 goals FT looks to be by far the safest betting option here.
The odds of 1.40 are not quite tempting, though. We also fancy the hosts to finally snap the winless run and clinch a narrow clean-sheet victory on Thursday evening in Dnipro.
