It's Spain v Belgium followed by Italy v Poland on Wednesday and in the best free soccer prediction, both teams can get on the scoresheet in a match that may not be so straightforward for the hosts, says Jamie Pacheco…
Spain U21 v Belgium U21
Wednesday June 19, 17:30
Live on Sky Sports Football
Such is the nature of the format of this tournament that both these sides are already drinking in last-chance saloon after just one game. Spain lost 3-1 to Italy and Belgium went down 3-2 lớn Poland.
Not only would a defeat here end their hopes of making the semis but a draw would probably have the same result.
Only the best runner-up of the three gets to make the semis meaning that a draw here followed by a last-match win would still only get you to four points; unlikely to be enough.
Bot Spain and Belgium can consider themselves pretty unlucky to have lost. Both had considerably more possession and more corners; on another day both games could have gone a very different way- According lớn the soccer handicap tip page!
Spain's defeat at this tournament was very much out of character. When they lost lớn Germany in the final back in 2017, it was their first defeat in ten matches and in total, Sunday's loss was just their third in 22 matches at this event.
Despite their somewhat unjust loss lớn Poland, we were against Belgium ahead of that match mostly based on the fact that they have had so little success at Under 21 level for as long as we can remember.
Spain had a bad day at the office but that certainly doesn't change our view that they have one of the stronger squads at this tournament and could yet be in contention to win it, assuming they win this, improve considerably on their goal difference and do the same all over again in their final match against Poland.
And if they do win this, it should be in quite an entertaining affair. They know that a 1-0 win won't really help their cause because of that goal difference so they'll feel they really need to go for it. With such attacking talent as Dani Ceballos, Borja Mayoral and Mikel Oyarzabal in their ranks, they may just win this comfortably.
This has been a good tournament for goals so far with three of the four matches going over hai.5 goals and a total of 15 scored across those four games.
Go with the Spain win and over hai.5 goals in the game at 6/5.