Portugal vs Liechtenstein prediction: EUROPE: Euro – Qualification betting tips on match 2023-03-22 19:45.
Portugal begin their bid to qualify for the European Championships they memorably won in France in 2016 by taking on Liechtenstein, looking to move on from December’s disappointing World Cup quarter-final exit to Morocco. After succeeding Fernando Santos as manager, Roberto MartĂnez has resisted the urge to ring the changes and has included veterans Cristiano Ronaldo (38) and Pepe (40) in his first-ever squad.
“I don’t look at age” was his defence for calling up the pair as he prepares to take a first look at his new team in competitive action. He couldn’t have been handed a much easier start than taking on Liechtenstein (FIFA rank: #198) at home though, as Portugal (FIFA rank: #9) have a perfect home H2H record (W3), scoring an average of six goals per game during those fixtures with two of them yielding national record 8-0 victories!
Liechtenstein will have fond memories of drawing 2-2 against Portugal back in 2004 but despite only losing 2-1 on their previous visit, a repeat is unlikely as they’ve lost each of their last four matches by a 2-0 margin. Scoring has been a perennial problem in European Championship qualifying (ECQ) for the Blue-Reds as they’ve netted just four times across the last two campaigns (W1, D4, L15)!
Also without an away win since beating fellow Group J participants Luxembourg in October 2020 (D2, L11), this could be an exercise in damage limitation for Liechtenstein, whose last two trips to nations currently ranked inside FIFA’s top 15 saw them concede nine and seven goals without reply against Germany and Switzerland respectively!
Players to watch: Portugal’s Gonçalo Ramos has scored six times across his last six appearances for Benfica and netted a brilliant World Cup hat-trick against Switzerland in December. Nobody in the current Liechtenstein squad has bagged more international goals than captain Nicolas Hasler (five) and three of his four club goals this term came inside the opening 20 minutes.
Hot streak: Each of Portugal’s last six ECQ games witnessed scoring in both halves (W5, L1).