Russia vs Sweden Prediction, Betting Tips & Preview

Preview

Joel Amorim Sep 03, 2015 @ 12:42 am

Next Saturday, 5th of September 2015, the Eastern European giant, Russia, will entertain Sweden at the modern Otkrytie Arena in Moscow for the 2016 UEFA European Championship Qualifying Round.

Fabio Capello’s stewardship with the Russian National Team has finally come to an end. After a long and poor quality Russian novel, with plenty of uninteresting characters and with a fairly predictable outcome, Don Fabio has finally agreed terms with the RFU for his departure, but he left the team on a very delicate situation at Group G.

Russia are at the third place of their group, eight points behind the group leaders, Austria, and four behind their upcoming rivals, Sweden. A win is mandatory for Leonid Slutsky’s men next Saturday and the 44-year old manager is certainly aware of that. The CSKA Moscow head coach confirmed that the experienced midfielder Roman Shirokov will use the captain’s armband in the upcoming matches, while Igor Denisov and Vasily Berezutsky are now the team’s vice-captains. Slutsky promoted some changes in his first call-up by bringing in the talented FC Ural’s midfielder Alexander Erokhin and by allowing the return of the Russian renegade Fyodor Smolov, who has been doing a very good campaign with FC Krasnodar so far this season. The new Russian wonderboy Denis Cheryshev is also back to the National Team after a long term injury that kept him sidelined for quite some time.

When Russia and Sweden measured forces at Friends Arena in Solna back in October, the clash ended in a 1-1 draw with the Eastern European team scoring first by Kokorin very early in the match, but allowing the homeside to reach the equalizer right after the break.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia have only defeated the Swedish side once in the five times they measured forces. It was back in 2008, with the Dutch football master Guus Hiddink at the helm of the Russian team.

As for Sweden, without being particularly brilliant, they are comfortably sitting at the second place of Group G, four points ahead of their next Saturday’s opponents.

After losing to their neighbours of Finland in a friendly match early this year, Sweden embarked on a very positive streak of results with three wins in four matches. If Erik Hamren’s men manage to snatch a positive result from their travel to Moscow, they will certainly grant a place in the European Championship next year.

The experienced midfielder Kim Kallstrom will miss the reencounter with some of this former Spartak Moscow’s teammates next Saturday at Moscow due to suspension.

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