Austria vs Albania Betting Tips & Predictions

These are two of the most improved sides in European football and it will be interesting to follow their fortunes in France. Austria certainly carry the greater expectations following a fine qualifying campaign when they dropped only 2 points, the 2nd best record in Europe and it wasn’t a particularly easy group with Russia and Sweden for company. Their 4-1 win in Sweden was the stand-out result but they were beaten 2-1 by Switzerland in their most recent match, a friendly in November.

Albania’s qualification was not without its ups and downs. They won their opening game in Portugal and final game in Armenia to qualify but in between that there was just one win against Armenia at home, although they were awarded a victory in Serbia following crowd trouble. They could only draw 2-2 at home to Georgia in their only friendly since qualifying and unquestionably they will be outsiders when it comes to this summer’s European Championships, the first time they have qualified for a major tournament.

They are outsiders here too but that’s not to say they will be outclassed. Other than their win against Liechtenstein, all of Austria’s home wins in the qualifying group were by 1-0 margins. Both sides will be experimenting a little here and many substitutions are likely so it could be a disjointed game. You have to go back to 2012 for the last time Albania lost an away match by more than 1 goal so they are not afraid of life on the road by any means and backing Austria to win 1-0 at 9/2 might be the way to go here.