Iceland vs Finland Predictions & Betting Tips, Match Previews

Iceland are one of a couple of nations who have had an extraordinary summer of football. The tiny nation qualified for their first ever major finals after beating the likes of Turkey and Netherlands to the runners up spot in their qualifying group. They even did the double over Netherlands on their road to France.

This was followed by a worryingly poor sequence of friendly results, but all that was forgotten when they held Portugal to a 1-1 draw in their opening group game of the tournament. They followed this with a draw against Hungary and a last gasp victory against Austria to inexplicably qualify for the knockout stages. A well deserved victory against England followed to take them to the Quarter Finals.

This was further than Iceland ever could have dreamed of getting, and despite their 5-2 loss to host nation France, this squad will go down in Icelandic football history.

Iceland now need to repeat this feat as they try and make it to their first ever World Cup. They are in a group alongside Kosovo, Turkey, Croatia, Finland, and Ukraine. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they can get through to Russia but Turkey, Croatia, and Ukraine will all be vying for the top spot.

They drew their opening game 1-1 against Ukraine, with both of the other two group games also ending 1-1, to leave all six teams level on points and goal difference coming into the second round of clashes.

Finland’s 1-1 draw against the qualification debutants Kosovo is a much more disappointing result than their opponents’ though. This draw made it ten games without a win for Finland, six of which have ended in defeat.

It was this sort of form that led to them finishing 4th in their Euro 2016 qualifying group, and they couldn’t save themselves from their early poor form despite winning two and drawing two of their final four games.

Iceland have won five of their last seven home games as well, whilst Finland have lost four of their last six away from home. To add to this, Finalnd have failed to score in all four of these defeats, whilst Iceland have kept five clean sheets in their last seven at home. This makes odds of 7/5 for Iceland to Win to Nil look a good backing, and I’m going for a 2-0 correct score prediction at 11/2 as well.