Euro 2024 Tips on Wednesday: Back 7-10 best bet in Czech Republic v Turkey | OneFootball

Euro 2024

Hakan Çalhanoğlu collected nine cards for Inter Milan last season

It's the final round of EURO 2024 group fixtures on Wednesday and Mark Stinchcombe is back to pick out his best bet of the games on show...

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Czech Republic v Turkey - 20:00

It's the final game in Group F in Hamburg tonight, where Czech Republic need a win to qualify. Sat on just a point, nothing more than victory will take them through to the knockout stage. Turkey meanwhile have three points, and know a draw will be enough to qualify. As a result, both are priced at 13/8 in what looks like a very closely contested battle.

There's still an element of unknown with the Czech Republic following a change in manager in January post-qualifying. They appointed 60 year-old Ivan Hasek who's recent record doesn't provide huge amounts of confidence. Over the last 10 years he's had club jobs across the UAE and Saudi Arabia and in just his previous position at Lebanon, he finished bottom of their World Cup qualifying group.

His results pre-tournament make for good reading - 4 friendlies, 4 wins but the quality of opposition was not the highest and they still managed to concede in every game, something that has continued in Germany, alongside a Portugal defeat and draw with Georgia. Given we've only a six game sample to work off, with just two competitive games, it's not a significant enough spread of matches I like to try and draw too many conclusions using.

Turkey came into EURO 2020 as dark horses but failed to go anywhere near justifying that losing all three group fixtures and scoring just a single goal. Then things were going so bad during qualifying that they switched managers too, appointing Vincenzo Montella in September 2023. He got off to a terrific start, winning his first three games, including versus Germany. However, it's just one win in seven now, including four defeats, with one a 6-1 trouncing in a friendly in Austria. Pre-Montella there were more concerning results following the previous infamous EUROs with failing to win at odds of 4/11 v Armenia, 2/5 at the Faroe Islands, 2/7 v Luxembourg and 4/6 v Montenegro.

So for me there's plenty of negatives about both sides and that's before we factor in the motivation.

So what's the bet? I have to attack the cards again given the jeopardy. The Czech's have picked up six cards and Turkey five across their respective first two games. We see how the tensions rise as the group stage has progressed. The Czech's had just one in their opener v Portugal despite defending a lead and then had five v Georgia. Turkey began with two cards v Georgia before managing three in the first half alone against Portugal.

We have a line of 4.5 here and I mean Turkey are capable of clearing it by themselves! If we look at them in qualifying in the bigger games, they picked up five cards in Wales, five cards in Croatia and four cards at home to Wales. In their final group stage game at the last EUROs they collected three v Switzerland.

I'm not expecting a huge change in style commitment wise with so much on the line which hopefully leads to an aggressive game - these two sit in the top four of the tournament in terms of tackles per-game with 19+ and it's no surprise they are joint sixth for fouls per-game.

The man in the middle is Romanian Istvan Kovacs who took charge of a second group stage game between Slovenia and Serbia and produced six cards. At a similar level of game in the Nations League semi-final between the Netherlands and Croatia he produced five cards. So with everything put together, I think we have the recipe for at least five or more cards.