Betting Week in Review 20/6/2022 – Bookie’s Delight in the Nations League
Betting Week in Review 20/6/2022 – The Three Lions were well and truly hammered in the Nations League by Hungary and are favourites to be relegated to Group B. There was also a shock in the other game in England’s group, with Germany scoring five past Italy.
England Hit a Hungarian Brick Wall © Pixabay.
England Mauled at the Molineux
If England manager Gareth Southgate thought he had hit rock bottom when England lost 1-0 in Budapest to Hungary at the beginning of the month, he soon discovered there was still much further to fall. Despite being 222/25 outsiders and the supposed whipping boys of the group, Hungary destroyed the Three Lions 0-4, England’s worst competitive defeat since 1928, 94 years ago.
Bookies were offering odds of 300/1 for that scoreline to put that scoreline in perspective.
Hungary’s win was no fluke, and they opened the scoring just after the quarter of an hour mark thanks to a well-taken goal by Roland Sallai, who scored his second with twenty minutes left to play.
Zsolt Nagy made it 0-3 ten minutes later from range, and England’s impossible mission was made even more difficult when John Stones was given his marching orders on 82 minutes for a second yellow card. Although, in fairness to Stones, the sending-off was incredibly harsh as the Manchester City man appeared to be barged.
Long before Daniel Gazdag scored in the 89th minute to completely humiliate England, the Molineux crowd booed loudly and chanted, “you don’t know what you are doing”.
England enjoyed 69% of the possession but did little with it. Jarrod Bowen went close, and Harry Kane had a header hit the bar, but it’s no exaggeration to say the Three Lions didn’t deserve the win, managing just two shots on goal.
The Hungary win means they are the unlikely group leaders with two games left to play. They play Germany on Friday 23rd September and their last match against Italy on Monday 26th.
The defeat against Hungary means England’s hopes of not suffering the ignominy of being relegated rest on their final two games against Italy and Germany in September.
Germany Hammer Italy
On the same night that Hungary was teaching England a footballing lesson, the Germans were doing the same to Italy, becoming the first team to score five past the Italians since 1957. The 5-2 scoreline would have been worse had Roberto Mancini’s side not scored two late goals.
With just over 20 minutes left to play, Hansi Flick’s team were cruising 5-0, thanks to goals from Joshua Kimmich, Ilkay Gundogan (penalty), Thomas Muller, and a Timo Werner double.
After the game, Gianluigi Donnarumma, the Italian goalkeeper, said: “We are angry. There are no excuses tonight. We have to look each other in the eyes and restart in order to show that this is not the real Italy. We lacked everything tonight.
“We are very sorry for the fans, especially the Italians living in Germany. We all made mistakes tonight. I made a big one, and I take responsibility for that.”
Although Germany is unbeaten in 13 games, this win over Italy is their first win in the Nations League after 1-1 draws in each of the first ties against England, Hungary and Italy. The Germans are second in the group, a point behind Hungary and one point above Italy. Although mathematically, any team can be relegated from League A Group 3, England are the favourite for the drop. The bookies have Germany as the shortest odds to top the group (4/6), Italy are 9/4, with Hungary priced at 4/1.
Late Goal Gives Dutch Victory Over Wales
Wales came close to taking a point in their clash with the group leaders Netherlands at the Stadion Feijenoord, but a late goal by former Manchester United player Memphis Depay gave the host the win, just seconds after Gareth Bale had equalised for Wales.
The hosts started the brighter of the two sides, and they were two up after 23 minutes, thanks to goals from Noa Lang and Cody Gakpo.
However, as the game went on, Rob Page’s men grew into the game and scored against the run of play on 26 minutes, Brennan Johnson scoring his second goal in as many games.
As the game went into time added on, Wales sent men forward, looking for the equaliser. They were rewarded when referee Horatiu Fesnic pointed to the spot after spotting a foul on substitute Connor Roberts. The ever-dependable Gareth Bale made no mistake with his kick, hitting it low into the bottom corner to make it 2-2 with seconds left.
However, there was still time for another goal scored almost immediately after the restart. Depay reacted quickest and beat Chris Gunter and Chris Mepham to a deflected header, and the Barcelona man grabbed the winner.
Wales manager, Rob Page, said after the game: “First and foremost, we were up against a very good team, one of the best in the world.
“We’re disappointed we’ve not seen the game out again, the second time in two weeks, but having gone through this experience it will hold us in good stead for the World Cup.
“If you gives teams like this and players like him [Memphis Depay] half a chance it is in the back of the net, that’s the learning curve.”
The defeat means Wales are rooted at the bottom of Group A4 with one point, three behind Poland and nine away from the Netherlands. They face second-placed Belgium on Thursday 22nd September before their final group game against Poland three days later.
Scotland has the best chance of avoiding relegation out of the home nations. In their 4-1 win away at Armenia, the hosts were reduced to nine men after dismissals for Arman Hovhannisyan (44) and Kamo Hovhannisyan (91). Stuart Armstrong scored twice and set up another for Che Adams. John McGinn also scored in the comfortable win. Scotland are second in their group, a point behind Ukraine, with both teams having played three games. They face Ukraine twice in a week in September with a match against the Republic of Ireland squeezed in between.
Northern Ireland are in a dogfight with Cyprus in their group. Both teams are winless, and on two points, courtesy of two draws between the two. Greece is the runaway group leader with a perfect record of 12 points from their four games played.
