Montenegro VS Serbia

Montenegro host Serbia for this EURO 2024 qualification Group G second round battle at Stadion Pod Goricom in Podgorica early Tuesday morning Beijing time. The other teams in this group are Hungary, Bulgaria and Lithuania. I still see Serbia as clearly the best team in the group by pure class! They have an edge over Montenegro in all areas of the game. Serbia's FIFA ranking is 29th but this is unarguably too low – I have them in the 24th place in my world power rating that reflects the teams' pure class with the best possible lineup. Montenegro, on the other hand, are in the 69th place which is simply too high.. I have them in the 77th place in the power rating. The odds of close around 1.90 offered for them by the biggest bookies with the largest betting limits to win are definitely too high and we must take advantage of this mistake! Serbia played pretty well in World Cup in Qatar despite the somewhat disappointing results. They fought pretty well against the number one favorites to loft the trophy, Brazil, despite the 0-2 loss. Against Cameroon they would have deserved a win but lost concentration when on 3-1 lead. 3-3 was the final score.

We must remember that the Serbs did have some problems with their key players in Qatar in terms of injuries/fitness. Against a strong team, Switzerland, they dominated the first half but faded away in the second half losing 2-3. The Swiss were, however, playing above their normal level in this clash. Theree days ago Serbia dominated Lithuania at home winning 2-0. They could easilly have scored three or even four goals. They had close to 60% ball possession and recorded much more goal attempts, shots on goal, total passes, completed passes, attacks and dangerous attacks. They created 2.21 in expected goals – the visitors's number was just 0.31. Montenegro, on the other hand, beat Bulgaria in the opening round 1-0 way from home as favorites according to the bookies. They deserved the win but Bulgaria were incredibly bad in this game! Beforre this they lost three out of four games and failed to impress me at all! They will surely defend hard here but Serbia should have too much offensive talent! The hosts would probably have to be lucky to win win here.