Next Sunday, 12th of October 2014, a super motivated Slovakia will travel to Belarus to met the local team at the Borisov Arena for the third round of the Euro 2016 Qualifiers on a match where the Slovaks will certain want to maintain the fantastic moment they have been experiencing so far, which has received an extra boost after their win over the all-powerful La Roja yesterday.

There is nothing like a win against the former World and European champions to raise the morale of the troops even more. In paper, Slovakia’s win over Spain will only provide them three more points for their Euro 2016 Qualification quest, but in terms of motivation and confidence, it will certainly provide them far more than that. A late goal by Miroslav Stoch made the Slovak supporters roar with enthusiasm, since they were probably already convinced that they would not be able to get anything better than a draw from their match against Spain last Thursday’s night. The stands of Zilina Stadium erupted with joy when Stoch, the same footballer who won the FIFA Puskas Award last year, responded affirmatively to a Michal Duris’ cross from the right and carved yet another nail on the Spanish already heavily perforated coffin.

Slovakia worked hard throughout the entire the match and their late win was a prize of sorts, especially to a team that has only lost once on their last six matches. Their manager, Jan Kozak, who was a regular choice for the Czechoslovakia National Team back his days, took the helm of the team in July 2013 and ever since then Slovakia have only lost three times. The team’s engine seems to be well oiled and their two wins against their group’s main contenders are probably a definite sign that Slovakia are on the right path towards success.

As for Belarus, the Eastern European side is far from being experiencing a very positive moment, as they’ve only won three of their last ten matches. Belarus have a fairly good set of players, such as Krivets, Drahun and Kislyak just to name a few, but for some inexplicable reason they keep underachieving one match after another.

After an embarrassing draw against Luxembourg, who used to be everyone’s punching bag not so long ago, Belarus lost their first match for the Euro 2016 Qualifiers’ campaign at the hands of their neighbours of Ukraine at home last Thursday. Kondratiev is yet to find the magical solution that will allow him to take the best out of his players and some of his recent options are, at least, questionable (as for example leaving Bressan, Kislyak and Sivakov out of the starting line-up on the match against the Ukraine).

Although Belarus will be playing in front of their enthusiastic supporters, Slovakia are favourites to win the match as the hosts currently don’t seem to be able to refrain the spirit of the Slovaks.

Belarus

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

Recent Form - LDWWD

Slovakia

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

Recent Form - WWWLW

Possible Line-ups

Belarus (4-1-4-1) – Zhevnov - Polyakov - Verkhovtsov - Filipenko - Balanovich - Sivakov - Krivets - Drahun - Stasevich - Kislyak - Kornilenko

Slovakia (4-3-3) - Kozacik - Pekarik - Durica - Skrtel  - Hubocan - Kucka - Pecovsky - Weiss - Hamsik - Mak - Stoch

Prediction

Belarus 0 Slovakia 1