Montenegro vs Liechtenstein Betting Tips

The small Balkan nation still has a slim chance of making the finals despite a poor start to the campaign which has seen them take just 5 points from 6 games. Their hopes were really dashed by crowd trouble in their home qualifier with Russia which saw the visitors awarded a 3-0 win after some serious crowd trouble.

Despite that they still only trail Russia, who are in the play-off spot, by 3 points with 4 games to play but will need to finish the campaign very strongly to have a chance of qualifying. They are a better side than their points tally suggests but they seemed to have timed their worst qualifying showing since gaining independence for what is their best chance of making a first finals competition given 24 teams will be in France next summer.

They clearly possess more quality than their opponents but incredibly Liechtenstein are also in with an outside chance of making the play-offs given they are level on points with Montenegro. They picked up a win in Moldova earlier in the group and also held Montenegro to a 0-0 draw in Vaduz.

Those results alone suggest this might be closer than many might think. Liechtenstein are a fairly settled and much improved side with a number of players playing in the Swiss Super League however it is unlikely Montenegro will be so poor going forward again.

The visitors don’t score many goals and have just 2 in 6 games so far and given Montenegro are quite strong at the back, it is hard to see them scoring in Podgorica. However Montenegro often aren’t great going forward themselves and backing them to win but there to be under 2.5 goals at tempting odds of 15/8 may be worth a punt.

One advantage for Liechtenstein is that there will be nobody in the stadium due to punishments for the problems in the Russia game. Therefore Montenegro will be without their usual partizan backing which often makes a big difference for them.

They should still have just enough experience to cope with the situation and squeeze out a win but with no fans it will be a game lacking in atmosphere or much in the way of intensity. If they are able to work up a 2 goal lead, they are unlikely to go crazy in search of more goals and can comfortably withdraw their star striker Stevan Jovetic with a big game in Moldova to come next week.

Therefore backing Montenegro to pick up a simple 2-0 win looks good value at 9/2.