Israel is known as an excellent home team but one cannot recall when was the last time they recorded some major success and qualified to one of the big world/European tournaments. They also did record losses at home despite their dominance; such is the loss to Latvia in the last year’s WC qualifiers, which surely proves they’re not unbeatable. At this match their coach Fernandez will have to do without their key player Benayoun, who is their link for the entire squad and without him they’re just “headless”. They do have a few other solid individuals other than him such is Barda from Genk for example, along with a few players from Hapoel Tel-Aviv’s squad that’s participating in CL this season, but overall they’re quite limited. They barely defeated Malta at home mostly thanks to Benayoun, beating them by 3:1 after 1:1 at halftime, while on the road they played a goalless draw against Georgia.
Strong
Croatia is among the biggest favorites to go through in this EC from this group so it’s certain that Slaven Bilic’s boys will give their all to make up for the poor 0:0 against Greece at home from the last round, when everybody expected them to take all 3 points. They kind of neutralized their good result from Latvia, who they beat 3:0, but it’s certain they are still the main candidates for going to EC. They have quite a lot of admired and very talented and technically skilled players all throughout Europe, among which we’ve got Olic, Kranjcar, Modric, Rakitic, Pranjic, Mandzukic, etc… and despite the fact they’ll be without terrific Srna and Petric, I still think they’re on very good squad that is bound to explode sooner or later on the pitch.
The Croats to the end
The hosts will fight a lot more here but Croatia is a much stronger rival and as the time will pass by in the match, they will slowly be taking over the situation on the pitch and due to a lot greater quality and technical skills, it’s only a matter of time when they’ll score. I think the odds here should’ve been below 2.00 on the visitors as Israel is weakened and isn’t a serious side anyway, while the Croats are world-class and it’s about time they display they full potential. They’ve met twice so far until now and both times it was Croatia that won, and given these odds I just have to go for another win of theirs.
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Prediction:
Tip: 2
Odd: 2.50
Bookie: Bwin
Stake: 6 /10
Tipster: Kather
