England and Switzerland Play For Third Place In UEFA Nations League

You have to give England manager Gareth Southgate a lot of credit–he definitely wasn’t just happy to make it to the semifinals. He did everything he could to set his team up for a winning run in the UEFA Nations League. In the end, it didn’t work out though it wasn’t due to Southgate’s tactical moves. He took a huge risk in the semifinal by resting all seven players that were involved in the recent Champions League Finals for Liverpool and Aston Villa including team captain Harry Kane. Keep in mind that this is a nucleus that consists of some of the best football players in the world. No doubt his thinking was that he’d rather have them rest for the semifinal game and fresh for the finals.

Southgate also did this as a vote of confidence for his young players like Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford. In reality, he didn’t have a good choice either way. If he plays Kane and his Champions League Final cohorts in the semifinal and England still loses he would have received even more criticism. To be fair, England’s young stars did a decent job and were it not for a few unlucky breaks along with some disorganized defending in the added time they would likely be playing Portugal in the finals of this event.

Instead, England will face Switzerland will on Sunday at the Estadio Do Dragao in Porto, Portgual with third place in the UEFA Nations League event on the line. England thought they had a late game winner against Netherlands when Jesse Lingard appeared to net the deciding goal but it would be waved off for offsides after video review. They came a bit unglued in the extended time and allowed the Dutch side to score twice in a 3-1 decision.

Switzerland gave a good account of themselves against Portugal and were all level at 1-1 late in the contest before Cristiano Ronaldo took over for a pair of his three goals on the day in the final 10 minutes. It’s somewhat fitting that a defensive lapse and a silly penalty was their undoing as these are typically strengths of Swiss soccer. In recent years, however, they just haven’t done well defending and that is something they’ll need to correct if they’re to go to the next level of international football. They’ve conceded two or more in 3 of their last 4 in international competition and have only one clean sheet in eight games.

That’s going to make the going rough against the ‘Three Lions’ offense that has been clicking of late scoring in six straight. They’re unbeaten in regulation in their last eight matches and have won five of six. Southgate says that he’s going to shake up the lineup on gameday though it’s unclear what this means. At any rate, both sides should score a pair and taking a look at the Nations League soccer odds that’ll do to put this game ‘Over’ the total.

BET ENGLAND/SWITZERLAND OVER 2.5, 3 -107
BET ENGLAND/SWITZERLAND–BOTH TEAMS TO SCORE: YES -155

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