It's a quiet week ahead for bobreaksbookies with only 3 International friendlies to look at on Wednesday before we get some competitive action again with the resumption of the European Championship qualifiers on Friday. Scotland are involved in one of those friendlies on Wednesday as they welcome Northern Ireland to Hampden park for a match that serves as a decent warm up for the visit of Gibraltar on Sunday. Manager Gordon Strachan will have had one eye on our trip to the Republic of Ireland in June when scheduling this friendly and the men from the North should represent a similar kind of challenge to that with which their neighbours will pose in our crucial qualifier with the Irish, albeit under friendly conditions. This should be good preparation for Scotland as they look to continue their fantastic progress under Strachan but what struck me most when looking at this fixture is the venue for this friendly; Hampden. Just why are we returning to Hampden?
Apart from the fact that Hampden is a fairly appalling stadium with a crap atmosphere and awful transportation links, are we really going to fill it on a Wednesday night for a friendly with Northern Ireland? I'm not sure how many tickets have been sold but I always wonder why we cannot bring more of these matches to our smaller stadiums like Easter Road, Pittodrie or Tynecastle (I am aware Tynecastle does not meet "UEFA Criteria") and enjoy the benefit of playing to a full house. Surely this approach would serve us better for friendlies with the big Internationals being rotated between Celtic Park and Ibrox we could really use our home advantage to our, well, advantage. I really feel our chances of qualification have been lifted with those 2 games we got at Ibrox and Parkhead and it strikes me as baffling that we are taking our friendlies back to Hampden again and why we continue to call this run down stadium our home. It is an out of date, not fit for purpose arena and as a small nation we need to be using every possible advantage we can find. When you consider the quality of alternatives that we have on offer with Ibrox being an official 5 star Uefa arena that absolutely rocks for the big occasions (not many of those recently to be fair) and Celtic Park which has always proven to be an intimidating arena for foreign visitors, both of these would be a significant upgrade on the facilities and atmosphere offered by Hampden. Still, I'm hugely excited by the Scottish national team these days and 7 months ago I tipped the Scots to qualify at 10/3 odds which have now shrunk to 5/4 which means the bookies almost expect us to make it to France in 2016! Happy days indeed for the Scots who sit with 7 Points from 4 games so far including a fine win over Ireland at Celtic Park, a win over Georgia at Ibrox and an excellent point gained in Poland with our only defeat coming narrowly to World Champions Germany. On Wednesday we should be able to beat a decent Northern Irish outfit who likewise are enjoying their best campaign in years and as it stands also have a tremendous chance to qualify for the finals as they proudly sit at the top of their group following some tremendous away performances in Romania and Hungary. Easier group though eh? Always the same for Scotland... Scotland are a best priced 4/5 to get the win and I feel we will do just that as long as the Hampden curse does not come into effect. Still, with it being a friendly, I expect Strachan to take a look at 1 or 2 different players and systems with the qualifier on Sunday at the front of his mind. I fancy Scotland to win comfortably enough here, perhaps by 2 to 0 to maintain both form and morale ahead of our expected weekend victory against Gibraltar, and you can get 11/10 on the Scots hitting the net twice. The focus of course though will be on the weekend qualifier where Scotland are a remarkable 1/100 odds on favourites against the whipping boys of International football in Gibraltar, but remember the new boys only lost 4.0 in Germany at the end of last year and will try to make things difficult for Scotland who are hardly veterans in the art of beating the world's smaller nations. This is exactly the kind of game that would have been filed under the heading "banana skin" for the Scots in recent years, but this is a stronger, technically superior Scottish team and I expect us to give the minnows their licks and send them home to the rock with a heavy beating. Perhaps the more crucial tie though for Scotland this weekend will be the clash between Ireland and Poland in Dublin where a share of the spoils would probably suit the Scots best in their bid to finish in the top 2 or 3 of the group. I remain tremendously optimistic about Scottish chances and can hardly wait for that crunch match with Ireland in June as well as the subsequent home qualifiers with Germany and Poland in the Autumn. This is Scotland's time and this week will hopefully strengthen our grip on an automatic qualifying position. There are a couple of other friendlies on Wednesday with Germany hosting Australia and Denmark welcoming the USA to Copenhagen although I would not expect to be making any big bets on these games while there is an attractive friendly on Thursday with France welcoming Brazil to Paris where goals could be on the cards. It should be a quiet week at Bobreaksbookies which is no bad thing considering the success of our last week and the return to profit however I will still look to find value for the rest of the week before the qualifiers over the course of the weekend. Comments are closed.
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