Croatia vs. Czech Republic 6/18/21 Euro Cup 2021 Soccer Pick, Odds, and Prediction

Croatia and Czech Republic are traveling to Hampden Park to face off in round 2 of Group D in the Euro Cup 2021. Croatia has had a sloppy first game in this tournament, and their winless streak has now extended to 3 games. Czech Republic is in solid form, and they have surprised Scotland in round 1.

Croatia is filled with good and well-known players starting with Modric, but they have been out of form for a long time now, and they are just not finding their way back. In their first game against England, Croatia has had 50% of ball possession, 2 shots on goal, 1 corner kick, 0 big chances created, and 84% of the correct passes. Croatia was equal to England in this game, but England has created better chances, and they scored once. Croatia was harmless and slow in this game, and they ended up losing 1-0. Lovren and Barisic are still injured, and they will miss this game. There were some good things in that game against England, but they will need to make some changes for this game, on both ends. Coach Dalic has already announced some changes in the starting lineup, and I hope that will wake up this team, otherwise, I don’t think they can do enough to advance to the next stage.

Czechs were playing against one of the hosts in their first game, Scotland, and they were waiting for their opportunities in that game and boy did they used them. Czech Republic has had 42% of ball possession in that game, 7 shots on goal, 6 corner kicks, 2 big chances created, and only 69% of the correct passes. Czech Republic has scored 2 goals in this game, granted, one was a massive mistake by Scotland, and Czech Republic has won this game 0-2. With 2 scored goals, Schick is the leading goalscorer for Czech Republic and one of the leading goalscorers in the tournament. There are a few great players in this team, as we can see Schick is one of them, but they will need a lot more than just him to stay in the competition to advance to the next stage. At the moment, Czech Republic is at the top of their group, but there are still 2 games to be played, and they still can advance or even lose everything in this group.

In the two games these two teams have played, Croatia has won one game while the other game ended in a draw. In each of those games we saw at least 4 goals, and both teams have scored in each of those games. Just by looking at the roster, Croatia is the better team here, but Czech Republic is in better form, and it will be a tense game. Croatia has no choice but to win in this game, and I think they will.