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Turkey v Russia Betting Tip
This match is a friendly match in the truest sense of the word. The two nations have decided to come together in this fixture in order to continue the reconciliation after huge differences off the pitch. Sporting diplomacy at its finest.
Turkey suffered a pretty horrendous Euros and were awful in their first two matches against Croatia and Spain before dispatching of the Czech Republic. There has been no managerial change since the competition but instead the players have been the victim of the axe. Despite his excellent performances for Barcelona this season, Arda Turan has been dropped from the national side by Fatih Terim alongside other big names such as Burak Yilmaz and Gokhan Gonul for the match in Antalya.
It will be interesting to see if this new-look Turkey side can do well in the upcoming World Cup qualifying campaign.
With Russia being the hosts of the next World Cup they of course do not have to qualify, meaning they have to satisfy themselves with friendlies for two years.
Leonid Slutsky has gone from the national team and Stanislav Cherchesov was given the reins of his homeland after a successful stint at Legia Warsaw. Like his Turkish counterpart, Cherchesov has named a different looking squad to the one that performed so badly in France. It seems that the past favouritism to players from CSKA Moscow and Zenit St. Petersburg is now out the window with Rostov’s Dmitry Poloz finally getting a deserved call-up along with some others.
I cannot pick a winner in what should be an interesting game and it could swing either way.
Russia’s new-look defence without half of the Berezutski twins and Sergei Ignashevich will need time to adjust so I think they could be vulnerable here. However, the Russian’s attack does look exciting and it could really test a Turkish defence which is incredibly inexperienced at international level.
Both Teams to Score is a very reasonable Evens.
I will be boring once again and back Fedor Smolov to score any time at 13/5 – as I usually do with my Krasnodar tips. He was being played out of position at Euro 2016 so we did not see the best of him, however, domestically he has carried on last season’s incredible form. I expect him to both start and score.
See all of today’s tips here.
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