Montenegro VS Finland

Montenegro and Finland lock horns in this UEFA Nations League League C round 6 clash at Stadion Pod Goricom in Podgorica early Tuesday Beijing time. A balanced match is very probable here, but I cannot agree with the bookies - Montenegro being the favorites! By pure class Finland are definitely the better side. My home country’s FIFA ranking is 59th and Finland did play in the EURO 2020 in the summer of 2021 and even beat the eventual semi-finalists Denmark 1-0 in Copenhagen! Montenegro did not qualify for this tournament and their FIFA ranking is only 67th. Let’s remember that Denmark defeated the reigning World Champions France yesterday 2-0 at home! It is true that Finland’s level has dropped from the EURO 2020 but not that much and the betting market should respect them more.. Our most important player,Teemu Pukki, has picked up great form lately and has already proved himself in the best league in the world, the English Premiership in recent years scoring a good number of goals for Norwich. Finland also have an excellent goalkeeper who plays in Bayer Leverkusen - and in the Champions League group stage this season as well!

Finland are definitely the more motivated team here as they are in danger of being relegated to League C and need a win! Indeed, they are currently in the 3rd place in this group with 5 points and a goal difference of 6:6. Romania have four points to their account and this the final round. Montenegro have grabbed seven points but this is more than they would have deserved in terms of expected points. They were also pretty lame offensively in their most recent match and lost in Bosnia 0-1. These two teams met early last summer in Helsinki and Finland took a comfortable 2-0 win. Montenegro created very little in expected goals in this match. Not that much has changed since that match and Finland are slim favorites here in my view. There has been heavy rain in Podgorica today and the pitch is expected to be in pretty poor form.. This lowers the goal expectancy which is good for us as we would win with a draw!