Azerbaijan vs Estonia prediction: EUROPE: Euro – Qualification betting tips on match 2023-06-16 16:00.
Although it’s early days on the road to UEFA Euro 2024, Azerbaijan’s quest to finally qualify for a first ever major tournament has started as poorly as possible after resounding 4-1 and 5-0 defeats to Austria and Sweden, respectively. Perhaps those scorelines aren’t too surprising given how Azerbaijan’s attempts to qualify for the last World Cup and Euros went, with both campaigns seeing them fail to register a single victory (D2, L14).
This qualifying campaign promised to be different however, as FIFA’s 124th ranked nation came into it off the back of a five-game winning streak, although against lesser-ranked opposition than their first two Group F opponents. Still, four of those five wins were against sides superseding themselves in FIFA’s rankings, proving why the bookies have sided with them as favourites when 108th-ranked Estonia pay the Dalga Arena a visit.
The Estonians also got off on the wrong foot in their own quest for an inaugural berth at a major tournament, going down by a much more respectable 2-1 scoreline against Austria. As a result, it is expected the two matches between these nations will be more decisive in avoiding Group F’s wooden spoon, and it is Estonia who hold the H2H mental edge having lost only one of seven prior encounters (W3, D4).
Thomas Häberli’s men will hit the road looking to continue some decent form on their recent travels, having avoided defeat in five of their last eight trips away from home (W3, D2, L3). Doing so here would see them already equal, if not better, their points haul from their efforts to qualify for the last Euros, where they ended the campaign with just a solitary point to their name (L7).
Players to watch: Azerbaijan captain Emin Mahmudov has scored his side’s opener in all but one of his nine international goalscoring outings. Meanwhile, Estonia’s Rauno Sappinen has netted five of his last six international goals away from home, so will be confident of continuing that streak here.
Hot stat: Only one of Azerbaijan’s last 15 internationals has seen more goals scored in the first half than the second.