Montenegro vs Austria Betting Tips

It has been a brilliant few months for the Austrian national team who have made it through European Championship qualifying for the first time. It has been no fluke either and has nothing to do with the extra places available this year given Austria have already won the group with 2 games to play having taken an outstanding 22 points from their 8 games.

They won 4-1 in Sweden last month to rubber stamp their ticket to France and it goes without saying that they are one of the most improved teams in European football. However this game really isn’t about them and isn’t really anything more than a glorified friendly as far as Marcel Koller’s side are concerned.

There will be nothing friendly about the atmosphere in Podgorica on Friday night though with Montenegro fighting it out with Sweden and Russia for what for them is likely to be at best a play-off place.

This is an interesting game and it’s tough to call and the bookies make the hosts very slight favourites but you can back either at 5/6 in the ‘draw no bet’ market.

Montenegro have only been defeated 4 times competitively at the intimidating Stadion Pod Goricom and were it not for crowd violence causing their qualifier last year to be awarded as a 3-0 win to Russia they may very well have been coming into this game in 2nd place in the group.

Aside from that win in Sweden, Austria haven’t been quite as dominant as the group table might suggest. 5 of their wins have been by just a single goal and they made hard work of their two games with Moldova, winning 2-1 and 1-0.

They beat Montenegro 1-0 in Vienna this time last year but this will be a very different challenge. Subconsciously at least Austria may take their foot off the pedal here having already qualified and a determined and passionate Montenegro outfit have all the tools to take advantage of that so consider backing them to win here in the ‘draw no bet’ market at 5/6.

There’s unlikely to be much in it but a few goals are likely as both sides should attack the game given Austria have nothing to lose really while Montenegro desperately need all 3 points with a trip to Russia still to come and their qualification chances could be over if they fail to get them.

Therefore consider backing Montenegro to win what could be a tense encounter 2-1 at 9/1.