Sports Blog 24/06/2015: England U21 v Italy U21 European Championship group game preview

It’s been a cagey tournament so far for the England Under 21s, however Spreadex clients are backing the Young Lions to qualify for the competition semi-finals with victory over Italy tonight.

Gareth Southgate’s side fell to a slightly unfortunate 1-0 defeat to Portugal in their opening game last week before substitute Jesse Lingard’s late strike secured a 1-0 win over Sweden in their second game at the weekend.

Now England need a win over Italy, who lost their first game to Sweden before drawing 0-0 with Portugal, to book their place in the last four.

Spreadex clients seem in confident mood and we’ve seen plenty of buyers of our Goal Supremacy price of England/Italy 0 – 0.2 as well as backers on the fixed odds which has seen England shorten slightly from 8/5 to 6/4.

However, while spread betters are feeling bullish about England’s prospects they are still anticipating a low-scoring affair with plenty of sellers on the Total Goals spread of 2.25 – 2.45.

Indeed, Group B in general has not been the place for action with just five goals scored in total in the four games so far and England and Italy both only finding the net once each in their two outings.



With this in mind there are plenty of spread markets that will be peaking the interest of punters such as Time of 1st Match Goal at 38 – 41 (sell at 38 if you think the first goal will come in the 37th minute or earlier, or buy at 41 if you think it will come in the 42nd minute or later or if there will be no goals scored at all when market settles at 90), Total Goal Minutes at 116 – 126 (time of all goals scored in a game aggregated) and Shirt Numbers at 25 – 28 (shirt number of all goalscorers in the match, aggregated).

When it comes to actually who will break the deadlock, Spreadex clients can’t see much past Harry Kane. The Spurs frontman has had a quiet tournament so far but could this be his time to make his mark on the competition?

Our traders price his Goal Minutes at 21 – 24 (minutes of all goals Kane scores, aggregated), his Super Mega Player Goal Minutes at 31 – 37 (minutes of any second goal doubled and any third trebled) and his fixed odds goalscorer prices at 17/4 (first or last) and 6/4 (anytime).

If the Italians do see the game slipping away from them, then the Bookings market could be one to watch carefully, especially in-play.

Italy’s opening 2-1 defeat to Sweden saw two red cards and six yellow cards brandished while their stalemate with Portugal saw four yellow cards handed out in total.

Spreadex’s Bookings quote for tonight’s game is 50 – 54 (10 points per yellow, 25 per red with maximum of 35 points per player) so while that seems fairly high initially it could be worth watching how things progress during the game before deciding whether to buy or sell in-play depending on how desperate either side becomes if they end up chasing the game.

As for England’s prospects of winning the whole thing, the Spreadex traders can’t see Southgate’s side going all the way with Germany remaining favourites at 6/5 ahead of Portugal at 3/1 with England 4/1 shots.

Still, a win tonight would represent England’s best-ever performance at an Under 21 competition and give plenty of optimism that some of this bunch could go on to help the senior side at a future full international tournament.