Euro 2016 Betting – Scots Need Full 3 vs Poland

Poland (+175) at Scotland (+162), Draw (+225)

There are only two games remaining in the Euro 2016 qualifiers, and Scotland needs two wins if they want to return to the international competition.  Hampden Park in Glasgow will play host for the team’s penultimate game against the  Poland on Thursday, October 8 (2:45 PM Eastern).

Scotland are only on 11 points through eight fixtures and sit fourth in Group D.  One of the strongest groupings of this year’s qualification, Group D is headed by Germany with 19 points, followed by Poland with 17, and Ireland with 15.  Scotland can still tie Poland for second, mathematically; but, more realistically, they are chasing Ireland for third-place, which would see the team advance to a two-game playoff against a third-place squad from another group.

Scotland’s chances of qualifying looked a lot better a couple matches ago; then they fell on the road to a weak Georgia side (1-0) and lost at home to the World Champions, Germany, (3-2).  Those two losses put coach Gordon Strachan’s team in an awful situation for the last two games.

Making matters worse, Ireland took the full three points from their last match. Scottish manager Gordon Strachan gave credit where it was due. “Well played to the Irish for winning,” said Strachan to the BBC. “We’ve had two chances over the last couple of days to pick up points, and we’ve not done that, so we can’t look about and blame anybody else for anything. But trust me, we’re still in this”.

Scotland will visit Gibraltar in their last qualifier, while Ireland hosts Germany and Poland in their final two matches.

Poland needs just one more point to clinch at least a third-place finish. Of course, they team is hoping for more. If they can hold off Ireland for second in the group, they would earn an automatic berth in the tournament.

They once had aspirations of a first-place finish and were actually ahead of Germany for much of qualification, but after a 3-1 setback to the Germans two matches ago, reality started to set in.

In their first qualifier (in Warsaw), Poland and Scotland drew 2-2.  Overall, each team has one head-to-head win along with three more draws. Scotland will be desperate for the win, but Poland has proved to be the stronger side. Look for this one to end knotted, again.

Pick: Draw (+225). 

(Photo credit: Ronnie Macdonald [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped.)