Italy v Spain Betting Preview – Euro 2016, 27th June
The clash of the round of sixteen at Euro 2016. There are some big questions set to be answered in this one. Will Spain get over the shock of having lost a European Championship game as they went down against Croatia? Will Italy have enough in attack to really threaten the Spanish back line? This is a mammoth clash which was never expected to happen in this stage of the competition. One of the big guns int he tournament will fall early though. Which will it be?
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Italy v Spain Betting Tips
Italy were one of the best sides out of the blocks at Euro 2016. They opened with a great 2-0 win over Belgium and then followed that up with another clean sheet victory, beating Sweden. Then they made some wholesale changes to their starting eleven to face Ireland and they lost to a goal five minutes from time in that one. But they will obviously be back at full strength for this one and they are going to be a threat in the game simply because of their defence. They will stay tight and organised and hope to catch Spain out on the break or through a set piece when they do get forward. They will harass and press and they work hard in trying to close space down. Because of the great defensive mode that they are in, it is likely that this one will go under 2.5 goals which is a price of 4/11 and you can also stretch it to under 1.5 goals as well if you want to for an 11/10 quote. While Italy can defend, do they have enough going forward to hurt Spain?
We knew what to expect from Italy going into the tournament, strong defence, little offensive output. The question is, will they get enough to the ball to hurt Spain at the back and that really is questionable and Graziano Pelle is a big 3/1 price in the anytime goalscorer market for this one. They will spend a lot of time chasing the ball and they don’t clearly have the pace in their side to play a powerful counter attacking game. Italy have only netted the one goal in their last four games played against Spain, which includes that 4-0 loss against them in the final of Euro 2012. So this is going to be all about defence for italy and sticking in there as long as they can. The Italians have shipped only one goal in their last five games played now.
So after looking pretty impressive through their opening two games, Spain blew a lead against Croatia to suffer a shock 2-1 loss. That came from nowhere really but ask yourself how likely that you are to see Spain lose back to back matches? You wouldn’t really expect it to happen here and as usual Spain will take all of the possession in the match and that of course will lead to them limiting Italy’s threat in the game even more. Was the second half against Croatia just a bad day at the office for Spain, because they looked really flustered at the back for no apparent reason? Italy don’t have the same kind of direct pace that Croatia have, in order to hurt Spain. In the correct score market you have a Spain 1-0 option at 4/1 with the 0-0 over 90 minutes at 9/2. Two of the last three meetings between Spain and Italy have been drawn and there have been just the three goals in their last three meetings. Spain are a price of 7/4 to win to nil and Alvaro Morata can be backed at a quote of 11/5 in the anytime goalscorer market.
Italy v Spain Betting Odds
Spain 23/20, Draw 2/1, Italy 10/3
Italy v Spain Predictions
Would still side with Spain on this one and more likely than not it will be a low scoring game which the Spaniards win by a one goal margin through. It’s not likely to get much more exciting than that. Spain will tweak their approach to get over that Croatia upset and they have the kind of performance in them that saw them tear apart Turkey in the group stage. Italy may have the bite at the back, but lack going forward. Spain to win.
