This match is likely to be very important to the outcome of Group A as two of the heavyweights come together in this opening fixture. It will surely be one of these two that finishes runners up to France in this group.
Sweden were pretty awful at the Euros and it was a sad way to see legend Zlatan Ibrahmovic end his international career. It will be interesting to see how Sweden cope without their former talisman. Of course, on the face of it, the squad looks worse without his presence as they now lack any real star quality. However, on the other hand, maybe they will start to play more as a team rather than be reliant on Ibrahimovic producing the goods.
Perhaps Sweden can take the mould of their Nordic counterparts Iceland, who did exceptionally well at the recent Euros, and start to play as a team rather than a group of individuals.
Dutch football has been at a real low for a while now. Firstly the national team failed miserably by failing to qualify for Euro 2016 – ridiculous for a team who came third at the World Cup just two years earlier.
To compound their misery, the master of Dutch football, Johan Cruyff, died of cancer in March of this year. The outspoken former Ajax and Barcelona striker had made his disdain with his country’s football clear for a long time.
Having missed the latest major tournament, it is hard to judge what sort of form the Dutch are in right now, unless you count the loss against Greece in their recent friendly which I personally would not. Perhaps the death Cruyff will spark the team into life during this campaign in order to try and pay tribute to their father figure.
In terms of this match I think you have to back the Dutch. The loss of Zlatan to Sweden is obviously a big blow and the rest of their squad has also been revamped after a poor performance at the Euros. This lack of experience at the top level could hamper the Swedes chances against a decent Dutch side, on paper at least.
As previously eluded to, after missing out on Euro 2016, the Dutch will be even more motivated to make sure that does not happen again.
A win for Danny Blind’s side is priced at a very backable 7/5.
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