Luxembourg and Slovenia will meet for the first time since 2007 on Friday in a friendly match in Luxembourg City, looking for a good showing as they try to build up form and confidence for the World Cup qualifiers in September.
The hosts enter this game looking for some way to turn their recent form around, with one win in their last 10 games, a win that also came in a friendly match against Sweden.
Their record in recent competitive matches is even worse since Luxembourg struggled in the UEFA Nations League C, finishing the last season in the last place in the group and without any wins. Still, they drew three times, which ultimately helped them avoid getting relegated to League D, the lowest possible rank.
Meanwhile, Slovenia also had their share of struggles in the Nations League, albeit in a League B, so against much tougher opposition. They finished the season in third place in their group and after a tough 1-0 win on aggregate against Slovakia in the relegation playoffs, they managed to stay in League B for the next edition of the competition.
How the bookies view it: Bookies like Slovenia's chances
The guests are favoured to win this match with 4/5 odds at Boylesports, which is in line with our expectations. Meanwhile, Boylesports offers odds of 16/5 on Luxembourg to win and 23/10 on a draw.
Recent head-to-head: No luck for Luxembourg
While these two teams haven't met since 2007, so we haven't seen them go at each other lately when Luxembourg have improved in the past decade or so, the fact is that Slovenia have a perfect record against them – four wins in four matches.
Players to watch: All eyes will be on Benjamin Sesko
There is only one player on both squads that has true star power and that is Sesko. The 22-year-old forward has been in solid form this season for RB Leipzig, scoring 13 goals in the Bundesliga in the process. Given his age and quality, it's no wonder that Sesko is one of the hottest commodities this summer and we might see him move to an even bigger club before the end of this transfer window.
More importantly for Slovenia, Sesko is pretty reliable in the national team, especially in the past couple of years. So far, he has 16 goals for Slovenia in 41 appearances. Given that Zlatko Zahovic is the team's top scorer ever with 35 goals, it seems pretty clear that Sesko will overtake him at some point, probably sooner rather than later.
Sesko to score a goal against Luxembourg comes with pretty enticing odds of 6/4 at Boylesports. Granted, this is a friendly game and Sesko likely won't play all 90 minutes, but this is still an interesting bet.
Predicted line-ups
Since this is a friendly match, both teams will likely use the opportunity to test some players that might not get a lot of chances in competitive matches, but the starting lineups should still be the best that both teams have to offer.
Luxembourg: Moris, Jans, Korac, Carlson, Bohnert, Barreiro, Moreira, Thill, Rodrigues, Sinani, Madjo
Slovenia: Oblak, Karnicnik, Bijol, Drkusic, Janza, Elsnik, Lovric, Stojanovic, Gnezda Cerin, Sturm, Sesko
Anything else catch the eye?
Looking at the previous H2H meetings between these teams, we can see that Slovenia have all four wins and that they only conceded in one of those games, so Slovenia to win-to-nil sounds like a smart bet, especially at 15/8 odds at Boylesports.
Consequently, we don't see a lot of goals being scored overall and under 2.5 total goals is another bet that should work out.
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