CHRIS Graham (@chrisgraham79) has been hard at work studying the Euro U21 tournament. Here are his views on Serbia v Czech Rep.
Serbia U21 v Czech Rep U21 | Saturday 17:00 | BT Sport 1
The Under 21 competition looked a mighty tough event to qualify for. Even if you won your qualifying group you had to win a play-off. Some of the big guns failed to reach this stage with defending champions Spain, France and Holland failing to get through. So god help anyone who failed to qualify eh Czech Republic?
Of course the Czech’s come into this competition as hosts but with just two friendly wins from seven matches leading up to this event they were up against it. This was witnessed on Wednesday when they lost 2-1 in their opening match against Denmark.
The Danes dominated possession (58%) and came back into the game after going in at half-time 1-0 down. That must have hurt the Czechs and you wonder about confidence levels going into Game 2.
The Serbs have been the surprise package throughout this competition. They finished second in their qualifying group to Italy and reached the play-offs after being one of the four best runners-up. In that play-off they were drawn against defending champions Spain and given no chance, incredibly they won 2-1 in Spain to win by the same scoreline on aggregate.
They kicked off their campaign in the Czech Republic with a superb 1-1 draw against strong favourites Germany. The Serbs matched them for long periods and will have gained huge confidence from that surprising result.
While I appreciate this game is taking place in Prague I’m willing to back the Serbs at 6/4 here. They’ll be much more used to competitive affairs than their opponents, will be buzzing after their German draw and will surely be feeling less pressure than their hosts.
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Serbia U21 v Czech Rep U21 – Serbia to win (6/4 William Hill)
