Italy are one of those sides who never seem to put too much into these sort of friendly games. In their last seven friendlies, over the last two years, the Azzurri have recorded only one win (1:0 v Scotland), lost three and had three draws.
If we go deeper in history and take the last 25 friendly games of Italy over the last five years, we’ll find only five wins there, including those over San Marino, Albania and Scotland. Over this period, Italy drew with Luxembourg and Haiti and even lost 0-3 to Russia. The loss to Russia happened on the eve of Euro 2012, which ended with Italy in the finals and Russia eliminated at the group stage. So, there’s a suspicion that we could see the same pattern here against Finland. The Finns just put in a solid performance to draw 1-1 Belgium, a game they would’ve won but for an 89th minute leveler from Romelu Lukaku. With Italy likely to be focusing on their opening Euro game against Belgium, and Finland motivated to get the best result possible against a big team, there’s value in backing Finland on a +2 handicap.