Azerbaijan vs Kazakhstan prediction: EUROPE: UEFA Nations League – League C betting tips on match 2022-09-24 16:00.
Azerbaijan’s 2-1 win over Slovakia in the UEFA Nations League (UNL) ended up being just academic as Kazakhstan ensured promotion from League C3 with a 2-1 win of their own over Belarus. It was Azerbaijan’s slow start to this campaign that must shoulder the blame after they failed to score in their first three matches before scoring twice each in their next two. They’ll now aim to finish on a high and secure a win that’d see them better their third-placed finish from the last UNL campaign.
Safe to say there won’t be a guard of honour or similar for the visitors as Azerbaijan are likely to go all-out to avenge the 2-0 reverse loss. A win here will extend an unbeaten home H2H record (W1, D1) and will also see the hosts record three consecutive victories for only the third time, with the last coming back in 2010.
Back-to-back 2-1 wins kept Kazakhstan unbeaten in this UNL campaign (W4, D1), aiding a second promotion in three seasons. Their points tally (13) is already the highest in any of their previous UEFA qualification campaigns and finishing on a high here will make this Kazakhstan’s first unbeaten qualification for any international tournament since the 2002 World Cup qualifiers – which they did as part of the Asian Football Confederation.
Unlike this time, that campaign in 2002 proved to be unsuccessful, but they’ll be aiming to put the icing on the cake by extending what is their best unbeaten away UNL run (W2, D1) in this one. Having scored in eight of their nine away UNL matches, we can at the very least expect Kazakhstan to cause issues upfront.
Players to watch: Ramil Sheydayev scored Azerbaijan’s last home goal – and his eighth in national colours – in a 2-0 win. That was the only time he’s scored in an international when both teams didn’t get on the scoresheet. For Kazakhstan, a strike from Bakhtiyar Zaynutdinov could be a good omen as five of his last seven national goals have come in wins.
Hot stat: Nine of Azerbaijan’s last ten matches were level at half-time, with seven of those goalless.