Finland v Russia Betting Tips [16 June 2021]

Finland have already served the first upset of Euro 2020, with a 1-0 win over Denmark, though this match will be remembered more by what happened to Christian Eriksen. They will be looking to bag three more points when they take on Russia in St. Petersburg. Going to this game, Finland are second in Group B with three points while Russia are rock bottom after a 3-0 loss to Belgium. Finland’s win was their first in seven matches and they are still expected to employ a defensive strategy against Russia as they did in the Denmark game. They had three straight losses, in friendly matches, ahead of the Denmark game and they’ve now avoided defeat in their last three competitive matches. They aren’t the strongest in attack though; in the last five matches, they’ve scored more than a goal in just one.

Russia are hoping to get back to winning ways and they have to do this against a side that showed great defensive qualities in their opening game. With home advantage and experience playing in major competitions, they should have enough to unlock Finland, having failed to score in just one of the last six matches. However, they do not score a lot; in their last 12 matches, they’ve scored more than a goal in two matches only. Even though three of their last five matches have seen over 2.5 goals scored, Russia have managed to score twice in just one, and they have only one clean sheet in their last eight matches. In their last six European Cup matches, Russia have four losses, failed to score in three and in the remaining three, they failed to score more than a goal.

Both Russia and Finland are goal-shy, and we expect Finland to sit back in this game, the same strategy they used against Denmark. They will hope to take maximum gains from the game, ahead of the tougher one against Belgium later. Russia will definitely be the stronger here but in their scoring form, we don’t see this game producing a lot of goals, and under 2.5 goals looks solid.