Kick Off: 1945, 22/03/2017
Stadium: Easter Road
TV: Sky Sports 1
Gordon Strachan will be looking for a confidence-boosting win when Scotland warm up for Sunday’s World Cup qualifier against Slovenia by hosting Canada in Edinburgh on Wednesday night.
These teams have met five times before in international friendlies, with the Scots claiming victory on each occasion, although they did have to come from behind to prevail 3-1 in the last meeting, which was also at Easter Road back in October 2002.
Strachan may put plenty of emphasis on being organised at the back here, so 21/20 for a home win to nil is our pick of the Scotland vs Canada odds.
A Look At Scotland’s Betting Odds
Scotland are an unpromising fifth in their World Cup qualifying group after picking up only four points from their opening four games, with back-to-back 3-0 defeats against Slovakia and England spoiling a solid start.
Sheffield Wednesday midfielder Barry Bannan believes they have been playing better than the bare results suggest, though, as he stated: “We had more than enough chances at Wembley to go into the lead and we never took them. We need to be more clinical. It’s up to us now to turn this around. It’s time to try and get the results and the performance as well.”
However, fears of a poor turn-out in the capital city don’t inspire confidence that this will be anything more than a low-key affair to get out of the way and 3/4 for under 2.5 goals to be scored in the game looks a solid bet.
A Look At Canada’s Betting Odds
Canada won’t be heading to the next World Cup after they could only manage third place in the fourth round of CONCACAF qualifying groups, with 3-0 and 2-0 losses to Mexico probably best exposing their limitations.
However, the Canucks did claim a decent scalp when beating Honduras 1-0 in Vancouver and were far from disgraced when only going down 2-1 in the return fixture after leading until the stroke of half-time.
A January 4-2 win over Bermuda will have lifted spirits, but October’s 4-0 loss in Morocco and November’s 2-0 defeat in South Korea are other examples of when they were found wanting up front.
Our correct score prediction here is 2-0 to Scotland at 5/1.
Additional stats
Last result:
England 3-0 SCOTLAND
Bermuda 2-4 CANADA
Head-to-head: Canada 0-2 Scotland, Canada 0-3 Scotland, Canada 0-2 Scotland, Canada 1-3 Scotland, Scotland 3-1 Canada
