Sweden – Czech Republic. Mark O’Haire’s prediction

Few teams go into Euro 2016 as reliant on one player as Sweden is Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

The mercurial marksman returns to the Blue-Yellow fold on Tuesday night to lead Erik Hamren’s men at the Friends Arena in Stockholm having been rested against Turkey on Thursday.

Hamren enjoys a healthy relationship with the forward and openly admits that national icon is the team’s only world-class player. The PSG striker scored 11 goals during qualifying, including three in their victorious 4-3 aggregate play-off win over old rivals Denmark and provides the class Sweden require.

The hosts are an experienced group that lacks the spark or industry to see off top teams in Zlatan’s absence. As a Danish tabloid cattily put it, Ibrahimovic aside, Sweden’s team is “about as interesting as an early morning trip to Ikea“.

The Blue-Yellows friendly form reads W4-D2-L6, with triumphs coming against Estonia, Iran, Ivory Coast and Finland over the past two years, but with Zlatan back in tow, I’m more than happy counting on the Swedes scoring in a match with strong potential for Both Teams To Score at 2.00.

Czech Republic are looking ahead to their sixth successive appearance in the European Championships and Pavel Vyrba’s men continue their preparations here having fallen to a surprise 1-0 reverse to Scotland on Thursday.

The Lions were magnificent during qualifying and a 3-2 victory away to the Netherlands on the final matchday secured top spot in Group A (W7-D1-L2) despite being drawn in arguably the toughest pool.

But the Lions’ strength is in their attacking threats and incredibly, you have to go back to November 2013 – an 18-match streak – for the Czechs’ last clean sheet. And that came against Canada. Fourteen of those 18 fixtures have featured winning BTTS bets, as well as 10 of their most recent 12 road trips.

Captain Thomas Sivok and Michal Kadlec form an unsteady central defensive partnership whilst Pavel Kaderabek and David Limbersky are most accustomed to attacking from full-back positions, so there should be plenty of space for Sweden to exploit in, what’s the potential to be, an enjoyable encounter.