Kazakhstan vs Poland Predictions & Betting Tips, Match Previews

Kazakhstan didn’t make the best of preparations for the upcoming World Cup qualification campaign in midweek as they lost a friendly away to Kyrgyzstan 2-0. This ended their four match unbeaten streak that had seen them beat the likes of China, Azerbaijan and Latvia.

However, they now face a much tougher test of trying to outdo the likes of Armenia, Denmark, Montenegro, Poland and Romania to qualify for Russia 2018. In all honesty it’s incredibly unlikely that they will finish any higher than 4th, but they will be mainly trying to avoid bottom spot. They finished second from bottom in their Euro 2016 qualifying campaign behind Czech Republic, Iceland, Turkey and Netherlands and ahead of Latvia.

They are at least getting one of the toughest matches of the campaign out of the way first. Poland are a genuine footballing talent and have a number of established players and a few youngsters breaking through. The two main ones are top scorer Robert Lewandowski and new Leicester signing Bartosz Kapustka, the former of whom is one of the world’s top strikers and the latter a promising teenage winger making a name for himself on the international stage.

It didn’t go quite how they wanted in France in the summer though. They narrowly beat Northern Ireland and Ukraine either side of a goalless draw with Germany in the group stages. They actually outperformed Germany and were unlucky not to win the game. Switzerland took them to penalties in the first knockout stage, but their experience from the spot didn’t help them as Portugal knocked them out on penalties in the quarter finals of the competition on their road to the trophy.

Poland have only lost one of their last 14 matches in normal time though, and they’re facing a Kazakhstan side who have lost four and drawn two of their last six home matches. The hosts are big underdogs for this one, and Poland won’t be happy unless they come away with a comprehensive victory.

I’m expecting a comfortable win for the visitors. They beat the likes of Georgia and Gibraltar comprehensively away from home in Euro 2016 qualifying, whilst Kazakhstan have lost by more than a single goal at home to Czech Republic and Iceland in recent years.

This makes odds of 1.925 for a Poland -1.0 Asian Handicap Win look very good value for money, and I’m going for that alongside a 3-0 correct score prediction at 9/1.