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Spain vs Norway Prediction & Betting tips
In the Mestalla in Valencia, Spain and Norway will start their European Championship qualifying on Saturday evening. The Spaniards are of course the towering favorite, although the Norwegians are in top form with eight victories in their last ten international matches.
Spain:
The unprecedented high level that Spain consistently tapped when it managed to win three major tournaments in a row has long disappeared. Today’s Spain is incredibly changeable. In the Nations League, for example, the World Cup finalist Croatia won 6-0, but in the same tournament they lost to England (2-3) and Croatia (3-2).
In itself it is not surprising that things are now going a bit less with Spain, because players like Andres Iniesta, Carles Puyol, Xavi Hernandez and David Villa are not easy to replace. I think that national coach Luis Enrique is still searching for his ideal team. He also surprised this international match by selecting newcomers such as Sergi Gomez, Sergio Canales and Jaime Mata, while Iker Muniain also returned to La Roja after seven years of absence. The main absences are Isco, Thiago Alcantara, Cesar Azpilicueta and Dani Carvajal. The result is a pretty inexperienced selection, in which only eight players have more than ten international matches. Sergio Busquets and Sergio Ramos together account for no less than 272 caps and must therefore take the team by the hand.
Norway:
Norway is known as the only country in the world that has never lost an international match to Brazil (two wins and two draws). Nevertheless, the Scandinavians have not made much of it in recent years, because the European Championship of 2000 in the Netherlands and Belgium was the last time we saw De Leeuwen in action at a major tournament.
It is therefore high time that this changed, although the selection of national coach Lars Lagerbäck does not exactly appeal to the imagination. Players like Havard Nordtveit (Fulham), Kristoffer Ajer (Celtic), Martin Ødegaard (Vitesse) and Markus Henriksen (Hull City) and Joshua King (Bournemouth) are nice players, but certainly not world top. With eight wins in their last ten international matches, the Norwegians are in good shape, but they played mainly against moderate opponents such as Cyprus, Panama, Bulgaria and Slovenia. In that respect Spain-out is ‘a different cookie’, as Louis van Gaal would say.
Spain vs Norway head to head matches
19.11.03 EUR Norway Spain 0 : 3
15.11.03 EUR Spain Norway 2 : 1
13.06.00 EUR Spain Norway 0 : 1