Denmark v Finland – Betting Preview

Denmark will play Finland on Thursday in the first round of qualifying for the 2024 European Championships, their first competitive match since the World Cup.

The top two teams from the six-nation group, which also consists of Denmark, Finland, Northern Ireland, Slovenia, and Kazakhstan, will advance automatically to the continental football tournament in Germany.

Denmark Preview

According to FIFA’s ranking system, Finland (ranked 56th) and Denmark (18th) are the two highest-ranked countries in their qualification group.

This will be the first time since they played each other in their first group game of Euro 2020 that these northern European rivals will face off at Parken Stadium in Copenhagen as they begin their Euro 2024 qualification campaign.

Joel Pohjanpalo of Finland scored the game’s only goal at the hour mark, but that June day will also be remembered for Christian Eriksen’s cardiac collapse in the first half, during which the player reportedly “died for five minutes” before receiving life-saving treatment on the field.

The Manchester United midfielder played every minute of the World Cup group stage but failed to lead his country to a single victory as Denmark were held to a scoreless draw by Tunisia before losing to both France and Australia, scoring just one goal all winter.

Finland Preview

Although Finland defeated Denmark in the previous continental competition, the Eagle-owls were unable to proceed past the group stage and fell short of the Danes due to a worse head-to-head goal difference.

Finland qualified for the inaugural men’s major tournament, Euro 2020, however Markku Kanerva was unable to lead his country to the winter World Cup as they placed third in their qualification group, behind France and Ukraine.

Finland has only won two of its last 13 games in all competitions since those World Cup qualifiers, both against Montenegro, a country rated 69th in the world between Iraq and the United Arab Emirates.

Denmark and Finland have only played each other five times this century, with each team winning twice and sharing a draw. The two nations haven’t participated in qualifying for a major international tournament since the lead-up to the 1988 Euros, when the Danes won both games by the same score of 1-0.

1×2 Betting Odds

Let’s begin analysing the 1×2 market

Although Denmark struggled in Qatar, Hjulmand has transformed this team into a tenacious opponent at home; since Euro 2020, the Danes have given up only two goals in their previous nine matches in front of their own supporters.

And that is why the home side is the favourite to win this @ 1.34.

Teemu Pukki, Finland’s all-time leading scorer, enters the game without scoring for club or country since January, giving Denmark the advantage in this qualification opener. Finland isn’t exactly prolific at the best of times!

Finland to win stands @ 12.26.

The market odds for a stalemate to play out after the 90 mins are over, stands @ 5.09.