Montenegro vs Croatia prediction: EUROPE: World Cup – Qualification betting tips on match 2025-11-16 19:45.
[p]FIFA World Cup qualification (WCQ) has already been secured for Group L winners Croatia, who are looking to round off this campaign in positive fashion when they travel to take on Montenegro.[/p]
[p]Match News and Current Form[/p]
[p]Despite starting this WCQ campaign with back-to-back victories, Montenegro’s hopes of securing qualification to a major tournament as an independent nation for the first time ever have once again gone unfulfilled. A run of four consecutive losses in the group without a single goal scored is the main reason for their failure, with their latest 2-1 win over Gibraltar proving too little, too late. Returning to Montenegro might inspire the Brave Falcons here though, as they have won three of their last four competitive home games (L1), with a 2-0 defeat against Czech Republic their only loss in their last six qualifiers for a major tournament on their own turf (W4, D1).[/p]
[p]Croatia defeated the Faroe Islands 3-1 on Friday evening despite conceding first to secure their place at a fourth successive World Cup finals after comfortably topping Group L in a dominant WCQ campaign which has seen them win six of their seven games so far (D1) and score 23 goals while conceding just twice! Despite their only draw in this group coming away from home (0-0 against the Czech Republic), Croatia will make the journey south feeling confident, as they are yet to concede on the road during this campaign (W2, D1), while netting eight such goals. To boost their belief even further, they are also unbeaten in their last seven WCQ encounters on their travels (W5, D2).[/p]
[p]Head-to-Head History[/p]
[p]Croatia’s 4-0 victory in September’s reverse fixture was the only previous meeting between these sides. [/p]
[p]Hot Stats and Streaks[/p]
[p]Just one of Montenegro’s last six competitive matches saw both teams score.[/p]
[p]Montenegro have only kept one clean sheet in their last nine home games.[/p]
[p]Croatia have scored 3+ goals in five of their seven WCQ matches this campaign.[/p]
[p]Four of Croatia’s last five away games have returned under 2.5 goals inside 90 minutes.[/p]
[p]Key Players to Watch and Missing Players[/p]
[p]After scoring Montenegro’s winner against Gibraltar, Nikola Krstović has now netted each of his last five goals for club or country before half-time. Petar Musa continued his rich vein of form on Friday with his seventh goal in his last nine matches for FC Dallas or Croatia, with five of those efforts arriving before the break. [/p]
[p]Neither side appear to have any fresh injury concerns coming into this one, but some changes are expected given that only pride is at stake here. [/p]
[p]For all the latest team news, please check the Flashscore match centre.[/p]
[p]Betting Analysis[/p]
[p]With nothing hugely meaningful to play for, we expect a free-scoring game with over 3.5 goals as in the previous H2H.[/p]
[p][i]Author: Tomáš Vlasák[/i][/p]