Kick-off: 1900, 02/12/2022
Stadium: Stadium 974
TV: ITV
Switzerland just need a point to advance to the World Cup knockout stage and are disciplined enough to achieve that feat against Serbia.
The Eagles possess more quality players in their line-up, but haven’t quite had the same experience of performing at the highest level.
We’re taking 12/5 for a draw in Doha as our first Serbia vs Switzerland prediction.
Serbia Odds
After kicking off with a 2-0 loss to Brazil, Serbia looked set to bounce back in style when coming from behind to lead Cameroon 3-1.
Strahinja Pavlovic and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic scored in first-half added time and Aleksandar Mitrovic netted early on in the second period.
However, the Eagles were caught on the counter-attack twice in quick succession as Vincent Aboubakar and Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting levelled things up.
Dragan Stojkovic then tweaked his tactics to shore things up at the back but that must surely go down as a missed opportunity for Serbia.
Stojkovic said: “We are frustrated, as we wanted the win and had the match in our hands, but our silly mistakes allowed Cameroon to avoid defeat.
“We made two huge mistakes in the defence. At this level, it is very dangerous to go high up when your opponent has the ball.
“These two mistakes cost us victory. It is difficult to understand and completely unnecessary.”
Serbia have won C and B-level Nations League groups since that competition was introduced and are a team on the upgrade.
They have not been able to test themselves against many elite teams, though, even if they did beat Portugal 2-1 in Lisbon in the final round of qualifying fixtures for Qatar 2022.
With a shaky defence needing help, this could be a cagey affair and 4/1 for the scores to be level at half-time and full-time appeals from the Serbia vs Switzerland odds.
Switzerland Odds
Switzerland put in a typically efficient display to defeat Cameroon 1-0 and then battled bravely versus Brazil before going down by the same scoreline.
It took a Casemiro cracker on 83 minutes to break down the Rossocrociati’s resistance and set up this tense tussle.
These sides met in Russia four years ago, when Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri, who are both of Albanian-Kosovan heritage, were disciplined after making nationalist gestures during their side’s 2-1 win.
Manager Murat Yakin is keen to avoid any more controversy and said: “We have to focus on football, just on football. Everything else, I really don’t care about.
“For both teams, this is a decisive game and it will be an interesting and exciting game.”
Switzerland are very much a solid, rather than spectacular, outfit but they are proven performers in competitive contests.
They have made the knockout rounds of the past two World Cup tournaments and were quarter-finalists at last year’s European Championship.
In the Nations League, the Rossocrociati have avoided relegation from three straight A-level groups.
A well-drilled and organised side are backed to avoid defeat with under 2.5 goals in the game at 29/20 in our Serbia vs Switzerland betting tips.
Additional stats
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