Chile won the Copa America in 2015 and 2016 and played in the Confederations Cup last year in Russia, yet they have failed to qualify for this summer’sWorld Cup. The Chileans would argue that a lack of summer rest for their players in the past few years has impacted them and several star men have been omitted from these friendly games. But Serbia sees the game as a far more important one.
The Serbians qualified for this summer’s World Cup thanks in part to being in arguably the weakest group in Europe as they outperformed Wales, Austria and Republic of Ireland to book their ticket as group leaders. They would face Brazil and Switzerland in the group stage, and while they have not been considered as favourites, they have the talent of Nemanja Matic and Milinkovic-Savic in midfield, they can cause an upset.
The Serbians would be looking at Aleksandar Mitrovic to fire them to the knockout stage, and while they don’t seem to be an attacking side, they scored 20 goals in 10 qualifying games, which is impressive.
Chile netted twice in their last match against Romania and beat Sweden 2-1 the last time they visited Europe. They would be looking to show off their attacking strengths in this game.
The Serbians won the only previous meeting between these two sides 3-1 and it came back in 2012.