Azerbaijan vs Croatia 10/09/19

10 September 2019

Azerbaijan take on Croatia at the Bakcell Arena for their UEFA European Championship qualifying (ECQ) clash, with the hosts searching for their elusive first points in Group E.

A poor haul of zero points from four ECQ games puts the hosts on the bottom of this group. Interestingly, all of their qualifying defeats have seen Azerbaijan score precisely one goal and concede two or more. Also, the Milli have won just three of their previous 12 home games in European or World Cup qualification (WCQ) groups (W3, D1, L8), all of which have come against their peers. Meanwhile, they’ve lost all five of their previous games against top-seeded nations of their ECQ or WCQ group, conceding over 1.5 match goals in each while scoring one or less. Also, Azerbaijan have struggled to come out on top in three of their competitive H2Hs with Croatia (D1, L2), although both of their losses have come on the road.

On the other hand, the visitors have won three of four ECQ games this campaign (W3, L1), with three of those matches ending with the same 2-1 scoreline (W2, L1). They go into this fixture off the back of a stunning 4-0 away win over Slovakia last time out, which has brought their three-game away losing streak to a halt. Interestingly, all four of those Croatia’s competitive trips have featured over 2.5 goals with Blazers breaking the deadlock three times across those games. However, they’ve been struggling away from home over the past two years, having won just two of their last eight competitive matches away from home in that period (W2, D1, L5).