Denmark vs Finland Prediction & Betting Tips (23 March)

At the Parken in Copenhagen Denmark and Finland face off in the first match of group H qualifying for the European Championships. Denmark is seeded in the group and is the favourites, but after the terrible World Cup the leadership is somewhat reduced; contending for second place are primarily Finland, Northern Ireland and Slovenia. As we said, Denmark played a bad World Cup but still has a squad far superior to any other team in the group including Finland.

Most of the players play in England with some players also present in the Italian league: think of Kjaer, Højlund or Hjulmand. Only a handful of Finns could hope to get a place among the Danish squad if they had the nationality due to the low average quality; performances, especially away from home, are often not up to par despite the fact that Kanerva's group has made great strides forward in recent years.

The Danish hard core has undergone a lot of changes since the World Cup. All present in Qatar, the defender Wass, the midfielders Delaney and Lindström, the historic Eriksen and the attackers Cornelius, Skov Olsen, Dolberg and Poulsen are absent from this gathering, due to injuries or by choice of the coach. The latter, however, relies on the solid goalkeeper Schmeichel (Nice, 89 caps) and many other of his usual executives: the defenders Maehle (Atalanta, 34 caps), Kjaer (AC Milan, 122 caps), Andersen (Crystal Palace, 22 caps) and Christensen (Barcelona, ​​61 caps) who scored the only Danish goal during the World Cup, Hojbjerg (Tottenham, 63 caps) in a very light midfield or Braithwaite (Espanyol, 64 caps, 10 goals) in outposts. Apart from the absences of defenders Uronen (ex-Brest), Sauli Väisänen and O'Shaughnessy who were already absent for the gathering at the start of the year, there are no surprises to highlight on the Finnish side.

The managers Hradecky (Leverkusen, 81 caps), Kamara (Rangers, 48 ​​caps), Pohjanpalo (Venice, 13 goals in 59 caps) and Pukki (Norwich, 37 goals in 108 caps) form the backbone of the selection. They play at the highest European club level and should start this game. The last mentioned is the star of Finland.