European Powerhouses Germany and Denmark Battle In U21 Soccer

The 2019 UEFA European Under 21 soccer championships is underway in Italy and Monday action offers what could be the ‘marquee matchup’ of the group stage as defending champion Germany takes on Denmark. The two other teams in Group B are certainly capable sides–Serbia and Austria–but it’s doubtful that either can hang with the principals in this contest. Once these teams hit the knockout stages they’ll face a tough test from countries such as England, Spain and Italy but until then this is as competitive of a matchup as you’ll see.

Despite the young ages of the players involved in this tournament the level of competition is extremely high. Many countries U21 teams have players who are already established professionals and that is definitely the case here. ‘Pound for pound’ the best player on the field for this game will likely be Jonathan Tah who competes for Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga. He’s already logged over 100 appearances for his team and is considered one of the real up and coming defenders in the league. Denmark has their own highly touted defender in 22 year old Joachim Andersen who competes for Sampdoria in Italy’s Serie A. Andersen is already a player that has drawn interest from some of the real heavyweights of the sport such as Arsenal, who unsuccessfully bid £43 million for the duo of Andersen and midfielder Dennis Praet.

The Germans will be without another top defender for this game–Jordan Torunarigha plays for Hertha Berlin. Denmark is relatively injury free. Germany played two of the other top contenders in tune up action and fared well, drawing 2-2 with France and beating England 2-1. Denmark didn’t fare as well in the friendlies they played preparing for this contest. Late last year, they were trounced 4-1 by Spain and 5-1 by England. In their final tuneup for this competition they lost to Croatia 1-0. There is considerable concern among Denmark boosters about their team’ poor performances when they ‘step up in class’ and face a top opponent.

Denmark is a solid team but the Germans do appear to have a clear qualitative superiority in this matchup. They last faced each other in the 2016 European Championship with Germany winning 3-0. This game might be somewhat tighter but in the end the result will likely be the same. Looking at the soccer betting odds for this event we’ll lay the handicap with the German team and play this one ‘Under’. If Croatia can shut down the Denmark attack as they did recently Germany should have no problem doing the same thing.

BET GERMANY -1 +101 OVER DENMARK
BET GERMANY/DENMARK UNDER 2.5, 3 -104

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