Hungary vs Croatia Predictions

Hungary head into Sunday’s game against the World Cup finalists bottom of Group E following their 2-0 defeat away at Slovakia on Thursday. Ondrej Duda opened the scoring for the Slovakians and Hungary’s fate was sealed when Albert Rusnak put the game to bed in the 84th minute.

Croatia on the other hand sit 2nd in the group following their 2-1 home victory against Azerbaijan. In a game they were expected to win comfortably, Croatia made hard work of it when they went behind to a Seydayev strike. They hit back on the stroke of half time through Barisic and as the game looked to be heading for a draw, Kramaric fired home the winner to save the hosts blushes and make it a 100% start to the group.

Hungary will be a trickier game for Croatia here on Sunday, particularly on their home patch. They won all 3 of their Nations League games at the Groupama Aréna as they beat Greece 2-1, Estonia 2-0 and Finland 2-0. In fact they have won 6 of their last 7 home competitive fixtures, with further wins against Faroe Islands, Latvia and Andorra.

Croatia will be heading to Budapest looking to keep their 100% record intact and go top of the group, however their away form has got to be a concern. They lost both of their Nations League away games 6-0 to Spain and 2-1 to England and in qualifying for the 2018 World Cup they dropped points away at Greece, Turkey and Iceland.

We don’t think that the Croatians are the same impressive side that reached the World Cup final and that showed not only in their Nations League performances but also in their opening game of the group against a poor Azerbaijan side they should have cast aside with ease.

Bookmakers have Croatia as odds on favourites but we see Hungary being a tricky side to beat here in Budapest, and with their impressive recent home record in competitive fixtures we think that over even money for the home side to win or draw is a great bet. For that reason we are backing Hungary double chance as our main tip. On the correct score front we think Croatia will battle hard and they are a better side than most of Hungary’s recent wins so they won’t find it as easy. On that basis we see a close fought draw with the game ending 1-1.