Azerbaijan vs Kosovo Predictions

Can Azerbaijan’s footballing ambitions see them push for a place at Euro 2020? The road to that tournament begins this week, with the newly founded UEFA Nations League. This competition will hand out four places at that tournament, which includes a spot given to a team from the bottom tier of sides, which includes Azerbaijan and Kosovo. They face Malta and the Faroe Islands in Group 3, with one side gaining promotion and a play-off place, which puts them u against the other four group winners for a Euro 2020 place.

Azerbaijan’s push for a bigger place in sport is clear. The Baku Olympic Stadium – which sits close to 70,000 fans – will host this season’s Europa League final, alongside four matches at the pan-European Euro 2020. They now have a chance to feature in those matches, but first they need to win their group. A mixed World Cup campaign saw them get off to a great start with wins over San Marino and Norway, but they won just one of their next eight games, finishing with a 5-1 loss to Germany.

Meanwhile, Kosovo faced their first ever qualifying campaign last time out. The new FIFA nation picked up a point in their first ever qualifier, as they drew at Finland. Hope grew that they were going to kick on and be more than minnows in the campaign, but they followed that draw up with nine straight defeats. They’ll get a new start in next year’s Euro 2020 qualifying campaign, but first Kosovo have the chance to test themselves against sides who are more at their level.

While playing fellow less-successful sides will help Kosovo long term, we don’t hold out much hope for them in this trip. They have lost four straight qualifiers, while their recent successes have been against smaller sides like Burkina Faso and Madagascar. They face a major step up here, and Azerbaijan will be looking to take advantage of Kosovo’s poor record in competitive games.

We think the hosts have too much for the visitors, and they’re fairly priced given Kosovo’s poor record on the road. The away side have lost four of their last five trips, and we are tipping them to start the Nations League with a defeat on Friday night. A home win is our prediction, and we’re tipping a 2-0 home win in Baku.