Matchplug

This match looks like a World Cup semifinal or quarterfinals, however, these teams have failed to qualify for Russia 2018 and have just begun a major rebuilding work for Euro 2020. The Netherlands finished 3rd behind Sweden in their group stage while the Italians suffered playoffs defeat at the hands of the same Swedes.

If you have a good look at the current options that both teams have, you would realize that their failure to qualify for the World Cup is more than to their fall from grace rather than the brilliance of Sweden.

The retirement of several key players have hit the Netherlands hard and Ronald Koeman seems to have a big job on his hands in terms of bringing back the glory days. The current group have the likes of Virgil van Dijk and Giorgino Wijnaldum who reached the Champions League final, but there is so much inexperience withing them with Justin Kluivert leading a new generation.

Italy have a slightly more experienced squad, however, only Mario Balotelli has more than 6 goals for the Azurris and their midfield is led by Alessandro Florenzi who is the only midfielder in the squad who has more than 10 caps.

The Italians have won two and drawn two of their last five friendly matches against the Netherlands.

Belgium’s talented squad head to this summer’s World Cup as favourites yet again and this game offers Roberto Martinez the chance to test his selected players against reigning European champions, Portugal.

Portugal defended their way to victory in Euro 2016, and they have selected almost the same group of defenders, however, it seems very unlikely for them to record the same kind of success at the World and seeing them throw away a 2-goal lead to draw 2-2 against Tunisia in their last game would bother their fans.

The Portuguese major concern should be their ageing defence, however, with Christiano Ronaldo yet to join them, their lack of quality on the attack has also become evident. They would be banking on Bernado Silva lead them to victory here.

Belgium would be happy to see how old the Portuguese defenders are especially as they are a team buzzing with attacking talents. Belgium bagged 43 goals in 10 qualifying games and they have netted in 19 of their last 20 friendly games ahead of this game. The Belgians have also been boosted by the return to fitness of Romelu Lukaku who netted 11 times in the qualifiers, and he has netted in his last six Belgium games.

Portugal beat Belgium at home 2-1 the last time these teams met in 2016.

Although they failed to qualify for the FIFA World Cup in Russia, Austria come into this game in top form having avoided defeats in their last 6 games and have kept a clean sheet in their last 3 matches leading up to this encounter. They would, however, need to do better than they did in their last match against Russia which they won, if they want to get a result against the defending world champions here.

Germany are surprisingly in a bad form leading up to this game as they have failed to win any of their last five matches. However, this game would be their first warm up before the World Cup and their fans would be hoping for a better performance from them here. The result is not useful for the Germans anyway so we expect their manager to do some experimentations here.

Germany’s poor form in their previous matches has been down to their bluntness in attack as they managed just 1 shot on target against Brazil. They have named a strong offensive team and this game should show what they would do at the World Cup.

Germany have an excellent result in this fixture as they have won all of the last nine games involving these teams.

This game brings together two of Brazil’s biggest teams head to head and the home side would be looking to take advantage of their home crowd to get the maximum points after 90 minutes.

Gremio have one of the strongest squads in the division and this is evidenced by them lifting the Copa Libertadores last season, however, they have still failed to win the Brazilian Serie A since 1996 and this season may be their last hope before teams start buying off their star men.

After their 1-0 win at the weekend, Gremio are currently 5th on the league table with 12 points from their first seven games. They have also secured advancements in the Brazilian Cup and the Copa Libertadores, keeping their hopes of a treble alive. They are unbeaten in 14 home games and they would be fighting to preserve that here.

Fluminense have made a surprisingly good start to the season after underachieving for the last few years. They currently have 13 points from their opening seven games which has helped them to sit second on the Serie A standings.

They beat Chapecoense 3-1 in their last league game and would be eager to get another three points here, however, their small squad would come under some serious tests beginning from this game as they face playing two games per week right until the World Cup.

These sides met 4 times last season across league and cup and Gremio were dominant, running out victorious on each occasion. In the 4 meetings, Gremio scored 8 times with Fluminense managing just a single goal.