Both bidding to bounce back from their matchday one defeats, Azerbaijan and Ukraine will do battle in a World Cup qualifier at the Tofiq Bahramov Stadion in Baku on Tuesday evening.
Azerbaijan endured a disastrous start to their campaign when crashing to a heavy 5-0 defeat away at Iceland on Friday night.
That bruising setback has left Fernando Santos’ side bottom of Group D after just one round of fixtures.
The hosts have little time to feel sorry for themselves given the quick turnaround they face ahead of Tuesday evening’s tussle with Ukraine.
Serhiy Rebrov’s side also came away empty-handed from their opening group game, falling to a 2-0 defeat against France on Friday night.
With the French widely expected to take top honours in this section, Ukraine will have earmarked their fixtures with both Azerbaijan and Iceland as being crucial to their prospects of reaching next year's World Cup.
How the bookies view it: Visitors to emerge victorious
The bookies odds suggest that Ukraine will get up and running on Tuesday evening, with the visitors short-priced 1/2 favourites on Boylesports.
Azerbaijan come into their opening home game of the campaign as big outsiders at 5/1 on Boylesports while the draw is an unfancied 14/5 with the same oddsmaker.
Head to head: First competitive meeting
Azerbaijan and Ukraine will face off in a competitive contest for the first time ever on Tuesday evening. The previous two meetings – both friendly fixtures back in 2006 – saw the pair play out a goalless draw before Ukraine recorded a resounding 6-0 victory.
Players to watch: Dovbyk to deliver?
With a respectable return of 11 goals across his previous 37 appearances for Ukraine, Artem Dovbyk looks the standout value in the anytime goalscorer market here at 11/10 on Bet365.
Nəriman Axundzade is regarded as one of the most promising young players in the Azerbaijan national team. The 21-year-old Qarabag forward is as big as 5/1 to make the net bulge in Baku on Tuesday evening.
Predicted line-ups
Azerbaijan boss Santos could make some changes to his side following Friday night’s horror show in Reykjavik, though he will once again be unable to call upon the services of injured defender Badavi Huseynov.
Vitalii Mykolenko departed the Ukraine national team camp ahead of Friday night’s loss to France due to an injury, so Oleksandr Zinchenko could again fill in at left-back.
Azerbaijan: Mahammadaliyev; A Huseynov, C Huseynov, Mustafazada, Cafarquliev; Nuriyev, Mahmudov, Ibrahimli; Emreli, Dadashov, Akhundzade
Ukraine: Trubin; Konoplya, Zabarnyi, Matviienko, Zinchenko; Kaliuzhny, Yarmoluk; Tsygankov, Shaparenko, Sudakov; Dovbyk
Anything else catch the eye?
With Ukraine too short to side with the above-mentioned odds, instead look for the visitors to triumph alongside under 4.5 goals at 4/5 on Boylesports.
This particular formula would have been a winning one in each of Ukraine’s last 12 victories across all competitions.
On a similar line of reasoning to the above, backing the away side to win by a scoreline of either 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1 looks well worthy of support at 13/8 on Boylesports.
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