Sweden vs Netherlands Predictions & Betting Tips, Match Previews

Legendary striker and all time top goalscorer Zlatan Ibrahimovic had always planned on an international retirement after Euro 2016, but Sweden’s display in the tournament won’t have resulted in any doubts at whether he should continue. They crashed out in the group stages after picking up just one point from matches against Republic of Ireland, Spain and Belgium.

Sweden now have to find goals from somewhere. Ibrahimovic scored 62 times in his 116 international appearances, and the top scorer in the current squad is Marcus Berg with ten in 41 appearances. That’s a big gap to make up, and with France, Netherlands, Belarus, Bulgaria and Luxembourg in their World Cup qualification group, it’s a gap that they need to bridge quickly if they are to stand any chance of making it to Russia in two years time.

Netherlands are an incredibly frustrating team. They have all the qualities to be challenging at the top level in world football, but inconsistencies plague them. They missed out on Euro 2016 after a dreadful qualifying campaign saw them lose to minnows Iceland twice and finish in 4th place with just 13 points from their ten games.

They followed this failure up with friendly victories against Wales, England, Poland and Austria. They were doing the same during qualification as well, as they beat Spain in a friendly.

The fact that Netherlands managed these friendly victories gave the Dutch fans some hope ahead of this World Cup qualification campaign, but that hope will have been put on the back-burner after their midweek defeat to Greece in a friendly. The traditionally low scoring Greeks managed to net twice in a 2-1 win in Holland, and it looks like they will have to battle hard for the potential playoff spot of 2nd in this group. Based on their current form, I can’t see them beating France to the top spot.

This sort of inconsistency makes them a bit of a wild card in betting. They have won five of their last six away games, but competitively they have lost three of their last five on the road. Sweden have only lost two of their last 14 home games as well, so it could be tough for the visitors. Considering the Dutch performance against Greece in midweek I think odds of 7/10 for a Sweden Win or Draw Double Chance is a good value bet, so I’m going for that along with a 1-1 correct score prediction at 5/1.