Serbia begin their European Championships qualification campaign with a Group D clash against Lithuania. The Lithuanians appear to be the weakest team in the group and the Serbs will be confident of a comfortable start on Friday.
Serbia will come into this qualifying campaign, looking to shake off their disappointing showing at the Qatar 2022 World Cup. They only claimed one draw from three group matches and failed to progress to the knockout stage of the competition.
The Serbs have already been in action in 2023 as they claimed a 2-1 victory over USA in a friendly back in January. They fought back from a goal down with efforts Luka Ilic and Veljko Simic getting them the win.
Home form is often pivotal for Serbia as they have won five of their last seven matches in front of their fans. Dragan Stojkovic’s men have scored at least three goals in all four wins, claiming 4-1 victories over the likes of Slovenia and Sweden.
Lithuania have a reputation for being among the weakest teams in most qualifying campaigns and given the quality of teams in Group D, already look to be out of their depth. They have failed to reach any major competitions and should be no match for their opponents in these qualifiers.
The Lithuanians head into Friday’s Group D opener winless in their last nine matches across all competitions. They have suffered seven defeats in that run, including a 2-0 loss at Estonia back in November.
One of the problems for Lithuania is a lack of attacking quality having failed to score in seven of their last nine matches. Edgaras Jankauskas’ men have also lost their last five away matches, failing to score in four of those fixtures.
How the bookies view it
The bookies have installed Serbia as overwhelming favourites with a home win priced at 1/9 by BetVictor. An unlikely victory for Lithuania is valued at 40/1 by Coral while a draw is set at odds of 9/1 by Unibet.
Head to head
Serbia have a 7-1 advantage from eight previous matches against Lithuania. They did the double over Lithuania during the Euro 2020 qualifiers, running out 4-1 winners in Belgrade before claiming a 2-1 victory in the reverse fixture.
Players to watch
Aleksandar Mitrovic is often the biggest attacking threat for Serbia and has eight goals in his last seven appearances for the national team. The striker also found the net four times in the two meetings with Lithuania back in 2019 and is priced at 2/5 by bet365 to maintain his scoring run.
Given Lithuania’s goalscoring problems, Serbia will be targeting a shutout on Friday. Nikola Milenkovic is often a rock at the heart of the defence and can lead the hosts to a clean sheet at 4/9 with bet365.
Anything else catch the eye?
Serbia are often comfortable at home and having claimed a 4-1 victory the last time they hosted Lithuania, a -2 handicap can be considered at evens with Paddy Power. The Serbs can also be backed to win both halves at 10/11 with Paddy Power.
Given the quality in Serbia’s attack, they can be tipped to score over 3.5 goals at 15/8 with Paddy Power. Aleksandar Mitrovic opened the scoring in both meetings with Lithuania in 2019 and could be backed to score the first goal on Friday at 2/1 with bet365.
This Euro 2024 match between Serbia and Lithuania will be played on Mar 24, 2023 and kick off at 19:45. Check below for our tipsters best Serbia vs Lithuania prediction. You may also visit our dedicated betting previews section for the most up to date previews.
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