Bosnia and Herzegovina vs Italy 16/11/19

16 November 2019

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s hopes of progression from the 2020 UEFA European Championship Qualifying (ECQ) Group J will be on the line when they take on Italy at the Bilino Polje this midweek.

It is a ‘must-win’ affair for the home side if they are looking to keep their chances of securing the top-two finish alive. Sitting five-points behind second-place Finland, the Dragons need a miracle to overcome that gap in the last two qualifying fixtures. But, they do have a good home record to start with (W3, D1), and an intimidating scoring form on home soil too (GF: 13). The Bosnians have netted 2+ match goals in all four of their previous ECQ home games, bagging at least one goal in all but one of eight halves of the ECQ home football played so far. A potential worry for the Golden Lilies is a leaky defense that has already conceded 14 goals, keeping a clean sheet only once in eight Group J matches.

Meanwhile, a 5-0 away win over Liechtenstein last time out has propelled the visitors to the final tournament, stretching their unbeaten run to 12 games, friendlies included (W10, D2). Gli Azzurri are also the only nation in this section to win all eight of their ECQ outings to date, with five of those triumphs being accompanied by a clean slate. Also, no nation in Group J has scored more goals than Italy (25), with 13 of them coming away from home. In fact, the Italians have scored over 1.5 match goals in all of their matches in the ongoing qualifying campaign, opening the scoring in all but two of those games. When it comes to competitive away matches, ‘La Nazionale’ have been impressive lately, pulling off nine wins in their previous 12 road trips in all competitions (L3).